Do you honestly believe that it’s a good faith argument that housing affordability is not under control of local governments?
Almost all of the “other states send their homeless to SF” stories are primarily tall-tales. I’ve yet to see anything document it as a major source of SF’s ills with anything even approaching hard data and not anecdotes.
That some of the infrastructure projects receive Federal funding does not excuse the local control of those projects being massively over budget and/or behind deadlines. Not to mention the cost differential as compared to infrastructure costs in other developed countries.
Are state budgets and pension obligations now primarily the realm of Federal control as well?
What if I add in education outcomes? https://www.economist.com/special-report/2019/06/20/public-e... Is this also outside of state control? What is inside state control that could be referenced to understand the successes/failures of state governments?
> Do you honestly believe that it’s a good faith argument that housing affordability is not under control of local governments?
In California, yes local government hands are tied by prop 13, as is, in a sense, the state government.
> What if I add in education outcomes? https://www.economist.com/special-report/2019/06/20/public-e.... Is this also outside of state control? What is inside state control that could be referenced to understand the successes/failures of state governments?
Exactly, it's hard to have a functioning local government when hamstrung by a federal one that is actively dysfunctional.
> In California, yes local government hands are tied by prop 13, as is, in a sense, the state government.
Prop 13 stops state and local governments from working towards affordable housing how? Even if you can establish a link between the two that I can’t see, I’m curious how you think that a state law is not in some way a part of state governance? Isn’t this definitionally a part of the failure of CA state government?
> Exactly, it's hard to have a functioning local government when hamstrung by a federal one that is actively dysfunctional.
So why can MA have great public education? Does the Federal government treat CA differently than MA?
> Prop 13 stops state and local governments from working towards affordable housing how?
It doesn't, but it does make them less effective in the long run. CA has a much higher than average rate of just...empty housing because of how Prop 13 incentives things. It can also make property acquisition more difficult.
Functionally you have two ways to make more affordable housing: build more housing, or build specifically affordable housing. In CA, Prop 13 makes the first option less attractive to developers, since it costs very little to hold on to "existing" land or housing. An empty mansion costs relatively little because property taxes are so low. But selling, renovating, or redeveloping it will suddenly bump the property taxes.
So you're left with option 2: create specifically affordable housing. This puts further limits on redeveloping, and state housing projects are both morally questionable and really expensive, so you either need to raise taxes a lot (but you can't raise property taxes, which would be the "right" tax to increase based on the tax-as-a-behavior-incentive idea) to pay for it.
> So why can MA have great public education? Does the Federal government treat CA differently than MA?
I'm a bit confused here. I'm not particularly familiar with CA's educational system, but it appears to be solidly "above average" on the whole, with college education being one of the best. Not everyone can be rank 1.
Almost all of the “other states send their homeless to SF” stories are primarily tall-tales. I’ve yet to see anything document it as a major source of SF’s ills with anything even approaching hard data and not anecdotes.
That some of the infrastructure projects receive Federal funding does not excuse the local control of those projects being massively over budget and/or behind deadlines. Not to mention the cost differential as compared to infrastructure costs in other developed countries.
Are state budgets and pension obligations now primarily the realm of Federal control as well?
What if I add in education outcomes? https://www.economist.com/special-report/2019/06/20/public-e... Is this also outside of state control? What is inside state control that could be referenced to understand the successes/failures of state governments?