Most houses that are built for the wealthy are ugly as fuck, too.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
America’s Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals. (NYT Opinion)
- Thread starter entremet
- Start date
Most houses that are built for the wealthy are ugly as fuck, too.
Wait how is this not the fault of wealthy republicans? Is this article just one giant whataboutism?
Gen x still isn't very old, and millennials will make more money as time goes on. So a while I'd say.
It is... when it's available to everyone. When it concentrates, that's not so good.
It's focused on liberal cities with powerful Democratic politicians?
This. It is something that annoys the hell out of me. I'm living in a very liberal city yet we only just switched from a less racist city representation method and many of the minorities living in the city are being driven out.
It riles me up.
Agreed, I also remember reading a report that the value of homes on golf courses has plummeted in recent years (because young people don't golf anymore).
I wonder if that trend will eventually extend to single-family homes in more urban areas?
Sure, but SF Gini index is 0.52, a bit worse than California entire at 0.49, and even worse than the USA entire at 0.48.
SF is one of the most unequal places in the US.
Tax the rich. Or we can dismantle the system of capitalism and replace it with something more egalitarian such as socialism which will hopefully give way to fully automated space gay communism.
Isn't that overblowing the control that individual cities have over policy and law?
Legit question: how is NIMBY so different from anti-gentrification? Both dont want strangers that will "change the character of the neighborhood". One has actual money to stop it, but even poorer communities have been able to halt new developments so its not like it hopeless.
At the base level, neither the rich or poor want new people around. So it's not "just" a rich people problem. I'm assuming that the poor areas are also kinda liberal.
At the base level, neither the rich or poor want new people around. So it's not "just" a rich people problem. I'm assuming that the poor areas are also kinda liberal.
I'm talking about local Democrats not federal ones.
NIMBY: Rich people don't want poor people near them
Anti-gentrification: Poor people don't want to lose their homes and jobs to rent hikes
Gentrification: The gradual displacement of the lower classes by upper classes through the influx of the upper classes in response to economic/socio-cultural opportunity, leading to increasing rents and cost of living in a given area
Don't have time to get into it now, but here's a letter signed by 35 housing equity orgs with concerns over SB 50, and recommendations.
http://allianceforcommunitytransit.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SB-50-Significant-Concerns.pdf
SB 50 was an improvement over the previous version SB 827, but it still had issues
No. Housing policy is largely in the hands of local municipalities
It's true and why people dislike biden becoming pres, he's not gonna do shit about shit. we need real radical change to overcome 40 years of reaganomic bullshit tilting everything upwards. and liberals/democrats have been complicit in all of that starting with clinton and continuing with obama.
Legislation and regulations that make sure people get paid better and have better benefits.
Rich people are always short sighted. They'd make more money if everyone made more money and spent more money and didn't have to dump crazy amounts of money into healthcare.
We all do better when we all do better.
This is more moneyed political operatives, imho.
There are plenty of people on the left fighting to improve things, donating money and time, pushing progressive policies and whatnot.
But there are political operatives who will innovate in new and exciting ways to stymie progress, even when the situation is dire for remaining opposition.
Progress requires 100% buy in, or 100% interest in defying fevered opposition. Anything less that that invites people gumming up the works.
There are plenty of people on the left fighting to improve things, donating money and time, pushing progressive policies and whatnot.
But there are political operatives who will innovate in new and exciting ways to stymie progress, even when the situation is dire for remaining opposition.
Progress requires 100% buy in, or 100% interest in defying fevered opposition. Anything less that that invites people gumming up the works.
Nimbys are destroying every city in America. PHX is one of the last major affordable cities in the Western United States.
Biden has almost zero control over local zoning and ordinances. Your mayor and city council control that.
Let's start with the 1/11,000 billionaire population in SF and go from there.
To be fair, the post he was responding to have a distorted view on wealth and progressivism.
The middle class and upper middle class. A lot of people don't seem to want to admit taxes need to go up on everyone.
Yeah most people don't walk the walk and talk the talk. It's easier to retweet hot takes on twitter for diversity karma.
That much makes sense, but what would this solution, on a local level in regards to housing policy alone, look like? Is this a "build more housing problem solved" approach we're talking? Rent control? How does local policy combat inevitable trends of poorly regulated capitalism?
The hypocrisy/contradiction of gentrification is two-fold. It's true that gentrification usually goes hand-in-hand with economic prosperity and that's good on the surface but:
1) As long as people rent and don't own their housing, rent-growth will outstrip wage growth in a given area
2) "The economic opportunity" that blesses the gentrified area is usually locked to a higher social class than whoever was there in the first place
The only real permanent winners of gentrification are:
1) The city government, because gentrified areas are better tax bases
2) Property owners
Everyone else is a sojourner whose main purpose in the process of gentrification is to generate wealth for the above two groups.
1) As long as people rent and don't own their housing, rent-growth will outstrip wage growth in a given area
2) "The economic opportunity" that blesses the gentrified area is usually locked to a higher social class than whoever was there in the first place
The only real permanent winners of gentrification are:
1) The city government, because gentrified areas are better tax bases
2) Property owners
Everyone else is a sojourner whose main purpose in the process of gentrification is to generate wealth for the above two groups.
yes, of course no shit. but it's of the same centrist economic mindset.
it's important that this is in the nyt because those are the exact sort of coastal liberal that needs to read this and wake the fuck up.
HE EVEN BRINGS BIDEN AND THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES UP IN THE PIECE. DO PEOPLE NOT READ ANYMORE???? FUCKING HELL
You won't get an argument from me on this. Single-family zoning needs to die.
I'll build on this and encourage people to read/listen to a recent Vox piece on addressing the housing crisis in cities. People should be free to move where they want. However, rich NIMBYers have made it impossible to build new housing in what amount of low density, single family areas of what are otherwise dense cities. Places in those cities with less economic power, and thus less political power, are the places that then get built up because people still want to live in these cities. Price changes would not be nearly as severe for existing residents of new housing is getting built all across a city rather than a few places where demand explodes due to limited options.
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/17/18628267/jenny-schuetz-weeds-interview
Depends on the state.
Could you imagine what housing policies would be like in Texas if the state determined housing policy there? They have banned inclusionary housing and housing vouchers.
Pretty cutting argument at the end here.
I don't think the article is an example of whataboutism.
Whataboutism would be ... if someone said something like, "Trump has spent $99m of taxpayer money playing golf since becoming president," and a Trump supporter/apologist replied, "Well what about progressives in San Francisco forcing poor veterans to sleep in church pews and eat trash -- What about that?!"
The world isn't zero sum, though many people (including the President) think it is. Criticizing progressives is not an automatic defense of conservatives. This particular NYT OpEd is focused mostly on progressive areas where Republicans in state or federal government really don't have very much policy influence.
I don't think the article is an example of whataboutism.
Whataboutism would be ... if someone said something like, "Trump has spent $99m of taxpayer money playing golf since becoming president," and a Trump supporter/apologist replied, "Well what about progressives in San Francisco forcing poor veterans to sleep in church pews and eat trash -- What about that?!"
The world isn't zero sum, though many people (including the President) think it is. Criticizing progressives is not an automatic defense of conservatives. This particular NYT OpEd is focused mostly on progressive areas where Republicans in state or federal government really don't have very much policy influence.
Last edited:
Are you sure about that? You are basically welcoming the rest of NY state to determine the fate of what happens in NYC or Westchester.
Isn't that where wealthy democrats will lose their influence though? In Oregon we couldn't even pass legislation to increase corporate tax rates from the lowest in the nation from what I recall.
San Francisco's problems are partially related to an overabundance of people with mental health issues. The climate encourages it, and it feels like SF is a destination for half the country's homeless. I have absolutely no idea what a solution looks like. It's impossible to commit and provide care to everyone.
Oh man I remember that gem of a thread.
Oh man I remember that gem of a thread.
Yes, thats the point. State level zoning blunts the effectiveness of direct political pressure from current residents. Because the largest negative impact (in terms of net scale) are those trying to move to the region.
You use democracy here to make it so any meighborhoods individual influence on decisionmaking is tiny relative to the whole.
NH and VT can be pretty cool if you pick the right location.
NH's biggest hinderance at the moment is its Governor, but other than that it's a pretty rad state. The rural areas are far more conservative, but you would get that in VT as well.
VT is a great place to live however they are suffering from a massive brain drain, to the point where they are paying people who can work remotely $10,000 to move to the state. The hope being that they establish roots in the state, and perhaps a tech scene emerges. VT also has legal cannabis, and an obscene number of awesome breweries!
ME...Portland is cool.
California resident here. We have some great things here. We also fail at so many foundational levels of governing I would not be surprised to see it have a red resurgence. The 'liberal' leadership in this state can be really, really frustrating at times.
Progressive cities became too complacent after integration. Just blaming it on NIMBYers seems like a convenient way to absolve yourself of that.
Sounds like the truth to me, regardless of political convenience.
Direct Democracy is worst democracy is at the heart of a lot of CA's problems.
Remember...proof is in the pudding; your hypothesis must be testable and if it does not yield the result you want when tested, YOU must change your hypothesis.
Here is a list of real things we can do to make real progress:
1. To address high cost of living: Build lots more housing of all types. Take into account environmental best practices to achieve some level of leed cert. whenever possible. Get rid of restrictive zoning laws and make the zoning system more like the much simpler Japanese mixed-use zoning system.
2. To address global warming / environmental issues: Overhaul base load power generation to consist almost entirely of state-of-the-art Gen IV+ Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors (like LFTR, IMSR, etc.) + compliment with renewables to address peak demand where efficiency is high (like PV/Solar, Wind Turnbines, etc.) + overhaul most vehicular transport to run on non-fossil-fuel-powered engines (like EVs with advanced battery technologies, fuel cells, or some sort of ICE that runs on syngassed fuels and/or biofuels)
3. To address inequities in wealth and power distribution: simple progressive taxation in every tax scenario (income, property, inheritance, capital gains, corporate, etc.), campaign finance reform (especially elimination of corporate personhood via reversal Citizens United) in combination with stricter limitations on lobbying and the revolving door (i.e., tamping down on the primary avenues used by corporate and special interest entities to bribe government officials), true universal healthcare (likely single payer with cost controls), highly-subsidized or free higher education (including both college and trade schools), bussing for all levels of public school education, bolster public school education by adopting best-practices found in Scandinavian countries (especially Finland), changing the voting system to adopt PR-STV (proportional representation by the single transferable vote), bolster laws supporting unions as a check on corporate power, fixed maximum total compensation ratios which limit pay for top executives at public companies by forcing them to increase the median employee/contractor's pay to increase their own, etc.
Here is a list of real things we can do to make real progress:
1. To address high cost of living: Build lots more housing of all types. Take into account environmental best practices to achieve some level of leed cert. whenever possible. Get rid of restrictive zoning laws and make the zoning system more like the much simpler Japanese mixed-use zoning system.
2. To address global warming / environmental issues: Overhaul base load power generation to consist almost entirely of state-of-the-art Gen IV+ Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors (like LFTR, IMSR, etc.) + compliment with renewables to address peak demand where efficiency is high (like PV/Solar, Wind Turnbines, etc.) + overhaul most vehicular transport to run on non-fossil-fuel-powered engines (like EVs with advanced battery technologies, fuel cells, or some sort of ICE that runs on syngassed fuels and/or biofuels)
3. To address inequities in wealth and power distribution: simple progressive taxation in every tax scenario (income, property, inheritance, capital gains, corporate, etc.), campaign finance reform (especially elimination of corporate personhood via reversal Citizens United) in combination with stricter limitations on lobbying and the revolving door (i.e., tamping down on the primary avenues used by corporate and special interest entities to bribe government officials), true universal healthcare (likely single payer with cost controls), highly-subsidized or free higher education (including both college and trade schools), bussing for all levels of public school education, bolster public school education by adopting best-practices found in Scandinavian countries (especially Finland), changing the voting system to adopt PR-STV (proportional representation by the single transferable vote), bolster laws supporting unions as a check on corporate power, fixed maximum total compensation ratios which limit pay for top executives at public companies by forcing them to increase the median employee/contractor's pay to increase their own, etc.