> For some reason, some people outside a community believe they should have a voice on what the actual community wants. As if a community should be expected to want to ruin what makes their space attractive so interlopers can infest it?
I don't understand the notion that that community exists in a vacuum where they're entitled to be insulated from the world changing around them.
I don't think that it's entitled to be insulated from the world changing around it, but I do think that the residents of, say, Palo Alto, should have more say about the planning and permitting in Palo Alto than I do (living 3000 miles away from there), no matter how much "some people outside a community believe they should have a voice on what the actual community wants."
I don't live there; I shouldn't have any say on their policies (except via federal law-making, limited by the 10th Amendment delegation of powers).
Why letting each city have the entire say on its planning is very obviously going to end badly for society. it’s not hard to see it’s a prisoners dilemma or tragedy of the commons type fiasco.
I have a hard time believe that people aren’t aware of that. Especially since we tried it for decades and the obvious happened - it has gone horribly.
Of course the average current home owners in Palo Alto doesn’t want it to change. But Palo Alto doesn’t exist on an island or something. Why would the nearby towns have different views? Mountain View doesn’t want to change! San Mateo doesn’t want to change!
Wowza! How about that, now the entire bay won’t change if left to each town.
And you know what, for decades that’s what we did and we can see what happened. All we got for it was a massive housing shortage.
We tried letting towns set their policy. It went horribly, as it obviously would.
It’s like Kant, would the outcome be acceptable if all the similar actors took this action? No? Well why shouldn’t they if this town does it.
They should have some say, but they should not be able to act as a cartel and prevent permitting altogether. And I say that as a new homeowner.
General zoning policy should be decided at a state level (or federal) - like in Japan. Otherwise, no individual community wants more development (of course), but it's a bitter pill that they have to swallow together if we want to solve the housing problem.
Anyone who lives in a area with hundreds of competing jurisdictions sees this problem everyday. One tiny village says yes the neighboring tiny village files a lawsuit. The smaller the jurisdiction the more desperate the government is for funding and tuft.
I don't understand the notion that that community exists in a vacuum where they're entitled to be insulated from the world changing around them.