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Comment by SubiculumCode | Hacker News Reader

Davis, CA. lol

Some context, because it is definitely an insider joke.

Davis had a long and contentious civic debate on whether or not Target should be allowed to build a store in Davis, eventually Davis held a city wide vote on the matter, which did pass [1].

Davis voters reject Measure V, spiking plans to build Village Farms housing [2].

Just a couple of examples where growth that most cities would approve without thought became a city wide civic issue that the community actually voted on.

[1] https://localwiki.org/davis/Target/History [2] https://www.abridged.org/news/davis-measure-v-election-updat...

Personally I feel we need more of this. Turns out that unchecked growth isn't all its cracked up to be.

Yes. Agreed. I liked the civic engagement. With the Target thing though, opponents were just a bit hypocritical. Davis residents were already going to a Target: they were driving to Woodland or Vacaville for their serious shopping.

That assumes there even is unchecked growth, and that’s very much not true. I think you missed the point of the game.

What cities have unchecked growth in the last fifty years?

It's all unchecked, aside from capitalism itself. Obviously a Target isn't going to open in a bad location. But that wasn't the point I was trying to make.

I suppose I should have said "a desire for unchecked growth." Listening to the politicians, every single one would happily invite every fortune 500 company, every datacenter, every mall, every everything to set up shop in their town/state and are happy to entice with tax breaks to get them there.

I'm fine with what we already have. I disagree with the premise that if you're not growing, you're dying.

Anyone who has tried to build apartments without an ocean of parking, or even sought to convert a suburban home into a 4 unit building, knows housing growth is severely checked

It should be an option. You pay higher prices. But the community gets more control. And for a smaller city, that’s a fair choice to make. For a metropolis, it’s not.

Growth should be checked by (reasonable) zoning, not by constant one-off meetings that make the de facto rules stricter than the on-paper ones.

Laws and code should be transparent.

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