
In a wealthy SF neighborhood, residents fight low-income housing - wallflower
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/In-a-wealthy-SF-neighborhood-residents-fight-10617213.php
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SamUK96
I see the exact same thing going on in the UK. In my district in Norwich the
local (parish) council (who is headed by my SO's grandpa in fact) are a bunch
of seniors who have grouped together and fought every large-scale housing
development plans for decades, ever since I was born.

I've talked to my SO's grandpa about this in fact just last week. He was
telling me how after over 40 years in a council, one thing he is sure of is
the affluent's hatred, fear and/or disgust for the poor.

It's happend since the dawn of time. The rich want to stay away from the poor.
Generally I hate the idea, and all it does is seggregate, breed hate, and
create ever higher barriers to social mobility.

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jwhitlark
Income correlates strongly with crime rates, and the more you've invested in
where you live, the stronger you're likely to attempt to protect it.

Tech hiring has had a long time meme that it's better to turn down a good hire
than to make a bad hire. It's just the same logic applied to living area.

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plandis
Why does everyone have to dance around NIMBYism? If you did not want to live
near poor people just say so.

Why do people feel the need to make excuses like: "what if the people who move
in here are sex offenders?" (a literal concern of a parent quoted in the
article). I think it says quite a lot about how these home owners perceive
poor people.

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drzaiusapelord
Because its not NIMBYism? I live in Chicago and we do this to welfare types
and its ultimately unfair to them. There's a few public housing projects in
ultra-trendy Wicker Park where these residents are shoved in the middle of a
largely residential neighborhood. So it a long walk to get to the bus or the
train. Worse, there are no jobs other than McJobs you can get anywhere in
these areas. No up and coming business towers hungry for talent. Just retail
garbage. The 'real' jobs are mostly downtown and considering we have the CTA
you could live almost anywhere in the city to get downtown.

So we take these people and put them in trendy areas for what exactly?
Meanwhile those lots could be be making tens, or even hundreds of thousands of
dollars in property tax. Worse, a lot of these people show up with their
messed up kids, who also have nothing to do, and who significantly raise the
crime in the area. I used to live next to a settlement like this. It was just
24/7 partying and fighting while the rest of us had to get up to go to work.
My car was broken into as well as our neighbor's, violent crime was
significant compared to just a few blocks over, etc.

Its a disservice to everyone involved. The city grabbed this land during a
different time when there were different political and economic realities.
Shoving all these very poor people into the middle of ritzy areas doesn't
work. Liberals are quick to criticize trickle-down economics, but what they're
doing here is the exact same thing. There's nothing to trickle-down to these
people.

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FireBeyond
This is the opposite of what you discuss. This is in the central area of the
town.

Instead they want it dumped on a highway "near a Holiday Inn", because, among
other reasons, there may be sex offenders (because you know, sex offenders
should only be housed in communities that can't afford to say no...).

