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In most of these places it’s basically illegal. Housing is run as a cartel to benefit existing homeowners and landlords.

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Don’t underestimate the gullible economically illiterate who undergird the support for anti-development policies. Without them, the NIMBY bloc wouldn’t have staying power.

"Temporarily embarrassed millionaire"[1] describes this mindset. It is quite prevalent in America's poor. I've seen too many poor Americans exhibit this mentality to not believe it is more or less a truism at this point. The propaganda of the wealthy and connected in this country has been remarkably effective.

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#Disputed

This is related, but different. A lot of San Franciscans have been pitched anti-science bogus economics around development causing higher prices. (It’s not true [1].) They vote against more housing not because they think they’ll soon be rich enough to afford it, but because they’re afraid of getting priced out.

[1] https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-...

"Stop greedy developers!"

The proper retort to this is to point to all the homeless and ask: if there were a famine, would the slogan be "stop greedy farmers?"

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