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Comment by TulliusCicero | Hacker News Reader

> Reading opposition to SB 50 and other efforts at increasing density, I’m struck by an unsettling thought: What Republicans want to do with I.C.E. and border walls, wealthy progressive Democrats are doing with zoning and Nimbyism. Preserving “local character,” maintaining “local control,” keeping housing scarce and inaccessible — the goals of both sides are really the same: to keep people out.

100% spot on. NIMBYism is the left's version of xenophobia. The mantra is very much "Welcome to my country, now get the hell out of my city".

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The more you build the more people will come. When can you consider a city to be full? When there is no land to build? Or maybe when it's impossible to provide an infrastructure to support its population? Are you ok with raising a family in a 400 sq. feet condo like people do in Asia? Because if you increase density that's going to be a new standard for American cities.

The problem is the high concentration of IT businesses in a small region of space. And the solution is to spread it to other cities across US. It's already happening as companies struggle to find workers in SF bay area opening offices in other west coast cities.

> The more you build the more people will come.

Sure, but demand is not infinite.

> When can you consider a city to be full?

No such thing.

> Are you ok with raising a family in a 400 sq. feet condo like people do in Asia? Because if you increase density that's going to be a new standard for American cities.

I'd rather that be an option than only having slightly larger apartments that are unaffordable, like the bay area currently does.

I think Vienna is a better model, though. Dense and highly livable. I live in Munich right now, which is similar. It's a great place for families.

> The problem is the high concentration of IT businesses in a small region of space. And the solution is to spread it to other cities across US.

Wrong. Ecosystem effects are a natural phenomenon. There's a reason you tend to get clusters for industries: they're more effective that way. Forcibly spreading out the economic success also means reducing the economic success in total. A much better option is just letting people come. The bay area isn't dense at all right now anyway.

They won't come unless there are jobs.

But if there are already jobs fro them, it's absolutely 100% the responsibility of cities to make sure that they allow enough housing to be built.

Right now California cities are encouraging growth in jobs while simultaneously actively preventing any sort of balance with housing. This has great effects for the pocket books of landowners in cities, and tremendously negative effects for the environment and all the workers that come later.

It's a completely false strawman to assert that families in 400sqft condos are the inevitable result of density. But we know what happens when nothing is built, that families savings are drained until they are forced to move to other areas, displacing them. That's by far the worst consequence, and it is the active choice of wealthy people in California.

Yup, and then they move where they can accord: to a sprawling suburb in Texas that's energy-inefficient and cuts more into nature. A real progressive win, that!

It's like these people have infant-style lack of object permanence: if we just make these people leave my city, they disappear! Look how great it is for the environment that they vanished into the aether, never to be seen again!

> Right now California cities are encouraging growth in jobs while simultaneously actively preventing any sort of balance with housing. This has great effects for the pocket books of landowners in cities, and tremendously negative effects for the environment and all the workers that come later.

Interestingly since local regulation is voted on only by locals, either directly or indirectly via their elected officials, the system is naturally catered to the existing land owners. Winning the support of commuters does not win elections.

Seems to mostly be "get out of my neighborhood" more than city, though the city part comes from not allowing growth in neighborhoods.

It's both. Neighborhoods do often have input at community meetings, but actual regulations are usually decided at the city level.

The city under siege by these neighborhoods. Renters don't vote, NIMBYs who moan at council meetings do. Therefore, city officials either side with NIMBYs or are replaced with one that will.

I find it odd that people blame the left for NIMBYism I guess its a regional thing but here in Denver most of the left of center folks are trying to get YIMBY legislation rolling. I don't think this is a left right issue here more of a stubborn old people want to see mountains from west facing windows issue.

That democrats have their own version of xenophobia isn't surprising, but I don't know that it can be clearly attributed to wealthy progressivism. The ideas are inherently reactionery and not very progressive. I think it shows that party lines don't neatly capture ideological divisions, especially in cities that overwhelmingly lean towards one party.

In other words, SF being all blue doesn't mean it's all progressive, it'll still have its fair share of right-leaning xenophobes. In a different environment where the Republican party had less of a broad stigma, I suspect a lot of these people wouldn't identify as Democrats.

As much as this sounds like a "no true Scotsman" argument, it doesn't make sense to me that NIMBYism is actually seen as a progressive stance.

The point of the article is that people who are ostensibly progressive (and do vote that way state-wide and nationally) are actually reactionary jerks for local issues, yes.

They're all for helping the poor and working class, until it may bother them at home. Then it switches to the ol' "fuck you, got mine".

Right, but blaming "wealthy liberals" as the headline suggests seems to miss the point. I think this has less to do with wealthy people or hypocrisy in politically liberal people, and more to do with the fact that everyone is blue in SF, even the conservatives. The author seems to be pointing at naturally conservative people and going "you voted democrat, why aren't you living up to progressive values?".

Maybe there is a faction that are hypocritical about this for local issues, but is that actually the main driving force behind the housing crisis? It seems to me that there's a lot more actual conservatives in SF than maybe the voter party registration gives credit for, and blue SF politicians know that they have to represent those people as well.

They're not conservatives by the usual definition. If you want to say, "well on this issue they're actually behaving in a very conservative fashion" I'll agree with you; nevertheless, by the usual standards of conservative and liberal/progressive, they're voting very liberal at least for state and national-level issues.

I don't think this comment reflects the heterogeneity of the American urban and semi-urban landscape. There are places actually trying to understand how to progressively and responsibly manage infill development, along with issues like mobility, local organic/regenerative agriculture, modern educational resources, and so on.

What heterogeneity? Most US cities and suburbs dedicate most of their land exclusively for detached single family homes. This is true even in most major cities.

> There are places actually trying to understand how to progressively and responsibly manage infill development

You make it sound like they're having to do groundbreaking research or something, but Japan and France and Germany have had responsible infill development for decades now. If we're failing to leapfrog using their lessons, it's because we're stupid and obstinate, not because we're mature and wise.

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