Comment by oppositelock | Hacker News Reader

Comment by oppositelock | Hacker News Reader

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I'm a home owner and YIMBY here who shows up at city council meetings in support of more housing. You would be shocked just how horribly selfish existing home owners are. Very common statements are that "I bought here because I liked the town and I don't want it to change", or "I have my house already, I don't want more people here", etc. It's awful.

We're slowly losing everyone in Mountain View except dual tech income people who won the stock option lottery, houses are out of reach for most everyone. What does get built via ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments) mandates is generally rental housing, and rents are astronomical.

This kind of short sightedness is disgusting, and people don't seem to realize that nice, high density areas didn't just spring up in their dense form, they were allowed to evolve over time.

CA also has a lot of red tape anyone can invoke on any construction project to drown it in bureaucracy for years. The only people willing to fight against the bureaucracy are giant developers who develop large lots into cookie cutter developments. It's a giant mess driven by greed and stupidity.

So on one hand you have people happy with the neighborhood they live in and not wanting change; on the other hand you have people not happy and wanting change.

Why is one group more "horribly selfish" than the other? Especially if you think there's a bubble, you don't want to change the character of the place for a short-term problem.

Why is "build more in one place" a more natural answer than "let tech companies geographically diversify themselves in response to pricing pressure"? Especially given an area that's kind of a natural disaster SPOF.

Because the same people that complain about new people were once new people. Also, they do not get the right to decide where people live. That's fundamentally entitled, selfish, and greedy attitude.

And since they don't get to control where people move in the United States, they don't actually get to stop change. Change still happens whether they want it or not.

Nobody has the right to stop others from interacting, or renting, or anything like that.

>> Also, they do not get the right to decide where people live. That's fundamentally entitled, selfish, and greedy attitude.

Oh but new people do that all the time.

I think that sentence would have been a lot clearer if I had not omitted the word "other"

"Also, they do not get the right to decide other where people live."

Otherwise, everybody gets to choose on their own where they live, and that is a freedom that I am absolutely loathe to restrict.

>everybody gets to choose on their own where they live

Why only this? Let's allow people to do everything they want. /s

Why can't some group of people, living in some area, set what are some rules that should be respected by all members?

BTW. We have too many humans on Earth which causes a global warming.

Your argument here might have some contradictions. It boils down to the fact that people don't get to force others to behave in a certain way, and I completely agree with you. But then you then use that to argue that therefore people should be able to force others to behave in a certain way. You know?

As we don't live in an authoritarian state and we respect individuals' rights, we tend to rely on the market to provide the most fairness. The reason for this is that the market is effectively a democratization of pricing. I don't think it takes a huge degree of empathy to see how some group believe that an individual that believes they should be able to break this democratization of price to force others to enable them to reside wherever they want is what could be called entitled, selfish, and greedy.

> But then you then use that to argue that therefore people should be able to force others to behave in a certain way. You know?

I'm not sure how I'm arguing to be able to force others to behave in certain way. I'm against some people being able to punch others; so in that sort of sense, I'm for that sort of controlling others' behavior. But this is no paradox, it's fundamental about what sort of control we're exerting on others.

Is it to increase all our freedom and letting us interact more? Or are we restricting people's behavior to prevent overall freedom?

When a cartel forms, and controls the market, is that regular market behavior? It's certainly to the cartel's benefit, and it's most certainly the natural thing for a cartel to act in its own self interest. But we outlaw that in markets, because they overall greatly restrict markets from operating.

I'm hugely hesitant to view everything from the point of view of markets, but if we were to do that, it's clear that local municipalities are acting as housing cartels on the behalf of a minority of the residents of a community. It's landowners highly constraining the use of land such they benefit and restrict the rest of the market from using land in ways that the cartel disapproves of (for example, multi-unit apartments).

> increase all our freedom

Not "all our" but of certain group.

"your freedom ends where my freedom begins"

Or event better. Let USA open borders and let everybody come from the Earth.

What would you say then? When you will have like 10x more problems with overpopulation, crime rising etc.

> So on one hand you have people happy with the neighborhood they live in and not wanting change; on the other hand you have people not happy and wanting change

I disagree with you, but I'm upvoting because (a) you politely expressed a reasonable thought and (b) I can't think of a succinct counter to your argument, and hope by elevating it someone else will. (If not, I have something deeper to think about.)

You have to react to the state of the world today, not some unknown future state. The Bay Area is very successful financially with tech, biotech, and finance jobs. People from all over the country and world are coming here. We need housing for them.

Basically, we can choose between two sets of problems, the problems of increased density, or the problems of gentrification. Yes, there is some amount of subjectivity here, and I clearly prefer the problems of higher density, but living here, I see a lot of very bad effects of gentrification. Service industry people have massive commutes from far away, yet we're dependent on their services, but we don't want to make housing affordable to make their lives better because we don't want change. We prioritize saving three big trees [1] over development, for example.

What is really disheartening is people saying, as you do, that we should drive tech away in some capacity. I've lived in the rust belt, in areas of low housing cost due to industrial decline, I really would hate to see that here, it's horrible.

[1] https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2017/12/22/downtown-residents-...

Oh, and one more thing - I'm glad that SB 827 died, despite being pro-housing. This is fundamentally a local decisions, it's just that the locals are being unreasonable. Whenever the state imposes a one-size-fits-all policy, you end up with different problems. San Jose, for example, is building housing like crazy, and tech companies are already building campuses near the new housing, as even Google employees can't afford to buy in Mountain View today. Basic 3 bed / 2 bath houses on < 6,000 ft lots go for over $2.5M in Mountain View. Owner condos are non-existent, rents are on par with Manhattan, but we don't have public transit to move people out into the boroughs. It's not a good situation. I'm lucky because I've been here since the 90's, but today, I'd be forced to leave the bay area given my income level.

> San Jose, for example, is building housing like crazy

And they have ruined what used to be beautiful farm land and orchards to create ugly urban sprawl punctuated by strip malls and plagued by violent crime. There's a very good reason San Jose, not San Francisco, was the site of the first major European settlement on the West Coast. Aside from having fantastic weather year round, San Jose was once beautiful. Few would argue that now.

I know people need jobs and housing but unrestrained urban sprawl is a terrible solution to that problem.

It'll be beautiful once again one day: imagine vines growing over the scattered, silent ruins of our decadent civilization.

The Romans probably thought they would be the last civilisation too.

San Jose was ruined when suburban sprawl ripped out all the orchards. Or it was ruined when the orchards replaced the prior natural beauty with industrial agriculture and rigid rows of trees.

There is no urban sprawl in San Jose, it's all ugly suburbs.

San Jose looks anything but urban. It's a big boring suburb, just like everything else between Gilroy and SF.

No way, our suburbs have way better restaurants than any other suburbs. Where else in the US are you going to find thirty different ramen shops?

Only if you count Napa as a suburb, too. Otherwise, SFBA's opinion of its restaurants is slightly exaggerated.

The farm land was ruined in 1950, not in 2018. That's when it was all paved over to build single-family houses.

And "urban" is the opposite of "sprawl"; YIMBYs are looking for infill and walkable development, which will eventually end sprawl… maybe.

You might want to check out some Apple Park drone videos - it's gone and time traveled back to 1940, and only cost like ten billion dollars!

I think the local control approach has absolutely utterly failed. And we have had plenty of time for local governments to adapt, but they haven't. So now its probably time to take away local control. People won't learn unless there is a change in incentives or consequences.

Local governments have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are incapable of addressing this problem. State intervention is the only way.

  tech companies are already building campuses near the new housing

Where are you seeing such construction?

(And if you're rooting for the land between San Carlos St and Santa Clara St. east of the railway to be an employee laden Googleplex, take a good look at 280 during rush hours now even without events at the Arena).

Google is buying those parcels because the city of San Jose is corrupt and selling at a fraction of their value, just like they tried to do when those were earmarked for an A's ballpark. That doesn't mean they will use it for dense office space.

> I've lived in the rust belt, in areas of low housing cost due to industrial decline, I really would hate to see that here, it's horrible.

There're more options than rust belt or NYC. I've spent my life in places that are thriving but also more sprawling. I suspect the future looks more like Atlanta or Dallas or Houston, especially with autonomous and electric vehicles on the horizon. They have a huge advantage in that world, in having far more land to easily expand into. I'm sympathetic to those who like their current areas, as well as to those in economically depressed areas - some increased diversification would help both of those groups! And I'm skeptical of densification as an answer to all cost woes, since Manhattan is dense and still stupendously expensive. Similarly, LA is much denser than Dallas, and still much more expensive. Maybe we'd be better off if some of that wealth got spread around, instead of continuing to accommodate even more concentration in a few centers.

I have a goal of owning a single-family detached home, and here's the thing I see missing in these arguments: it's not because of property values. It's because it's a fundamentally different experience that is how I would prefer to live, and so I see why people would fight to preserve the ability to have that, instead of just bowing to the god of economic efficiency.

In many places you can satisfy both, but the geographic constraints of the Bay Area make that harder. So someone has to lose, but I don't see either side worse than the other.

> You have to react to the state of the world today, not some unknown future state.

But the state of the world today in Silicon Valley is that there's not enough housing. Another possible reaction is to hire more telecommuters and expand offices outside of Silicon Valley. Why do you believe the local communities must change rather than the business practices? Are business needs inherently more important?

You've lived in the rust belt and would hate to see it where you are now, but what of the people you left behind? They'd love some of those tech jobs. Driving tech toward the rust belt would solve some of both the California housing crisis and the rust belt unemployment.

We really shouldn't try to all live in the same city.

This is a question I have as well.

Does everyone deserve to live in a place like SF or mid-town Manhattan for cheap, by forcing infinite housing supply?

Or is it ok to price people out of areas, creating different classes of people & forcing certain classes of people to migrate to places like Ohio (or Mexico)?

Unfortunately, the people that are going to be ruined are the poor that currently live in the expensive places.

>Does everyone deserve to live in a place like SF or mid-town Manhattan for cheap, by forcing infinite housing supply?

This does not reflect anybody's position on the pro-housing side.

Extreme exaggerations like "infinite" or "everyone deserving to live" do not facilitate conversations.

Saying that more housing should be built is not saying infinite. The idea that all workers in an economy should be able to afford their housing is not saying everybody should get to live in the most expensive place.

It may not be intentional but it seems like these statements were meant to take discussion off the rails.

> The idea that all workers in an economy should be able to afford their housing is not saying everybody should get to live in the most expensive place.

But this is exactly what's happening. Look at the discussion here, and you'll see people pushing for high-rises.

Should high-rises be placed wherever there's demand? Or is it OK to say no and limit people?

There's a huge difference between saying the limit should be changed and also that there should be no limits at all.

I do know that the current limit is not working. We should change it somehow. Any move towards more housing will at least help.

But this feels like a very false argument, like those who argue against a carbon tax or other Pigovian taxes that correct negative externalities. Sure, we may not know a priori what the best possible setting of the parameter is, but there's a huge range better settings out there, and it would be really hard to get it wrong if we take a single step in one direction.

I don't see anybody arguing for high rises. I see some people mentioning Tokyo, but that's not all high rises.

This bill was about low rises.

And even building some high rises somewhere is not a terrible thing. Just because somebody mentions the possibility do we need to circle the wagons and stop all multi-unit buildings from going up?

> Why is "build more in one place" a more natural answer than "let tech companies geographically diversify themselves in response to pricing pressure"?

Because USian land use laws / zoning laws (that enshrine single-family houses while prohibiting/obstructing the construction of most everything else) aren't good at all, and there's no good reason to preserve them as they are, nor any reason to think that they're optimal for anything; except for increasing the value of single-family homes by rigorously prohibiting the construction of alternatives.

Even "tradition" doesn't apply here, since the changes that prohibit high-rise/high-density/SROish housing are quite recent compared to the history of US cities.

It's really not about "tech companies", it's more about the fact that US jurisdictions have systematically eliminated and prohibited entire categories of housing.

> you don't want to change the character of the place for a short-term problem

I do want to change the character of the place, and I think that objections (aesthetic or otherwise) to any kind of new structurally-sound housing are bunk and should not be entertained or given any sort of authority.

Once you have people literally living and shitting in the street, I sorta feel that these NIMBYs should altogether lose the authority to obstruct/delay the construction of new housing.

That is some socialist thinking. Take sth from one group to give another.

Nothing socialist about letting property-owners decide what kind of housing to build on their own land.

So let's lift off visa requirements in USA and let everyone come if group of people leaving in some place cannot decide what should be the rules.

People who have want to prevent others from having. Even if one subscribes to the notion that all people are selfish it shouldn't be controversial to consider the former more selfish than the latter, and view the parent's comment in that light, charitably.

  how horribly selfish existing home owners are

But they don't have any power. They don't have a vote on the planning commission or the city council. They don't have a vote in the Legislature. Sure, individuals can rant in meetings to the degree allowed, but that's it -- they can't implement policy.

So if the vast majority are actually on the YIMBY side, then recalcitrant officeholders will be gone shortly... right?

This is the terrible outcome of having tons of votes for so many offices on huge ballots, most people can not possibly track the positions of all the people they are voting for.

So that leaves a small number of highly motivated people to choose these commissions. And because it takes very few votes to change the commissions one way or the other every decision can now be swayed by whatever small number of people show up at random times during the day.

Small numbers of highly motivated people control these commissions. They rally a large enough number of people at the right time, and they organize, and they do have complete control of these decisions.

Meanwhile, those who are young and have to work, or those who have to work many jobs and have children to take care of, can't spend the hours per week it takes to give input.

This form of direct democracy ends up enfranchising those with the most time and power to follow minutia that's unrelated to their day-to-day lives. And it attracts the sort of people that like to stick their noses into all sorts of other people's business.

  so many offices on huge ballots

City Council and mayoral seats are usually voted on odd-year elections with short ballots.

Those elections are generally low turnout as well, so the YIMBY types should find it easy to have an impact if the broad electorate is on their side.

Hey, thanks. That's a great summary of the structural problems in our government that allow regressive rent seeking to overtake so many industries.

For a (slightly) longer exposition I found chapters 6 and 7 of "The Captured Economy" by Lindsey and Teles quite informative.

We need to build housing for people who don't yet live in the area. In the current setup, where zoning is decided at microlocal levels, homeowners have far more power than future residents.

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