Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
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Re: Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
#2I'm skeptical that the bribes will be big enough to affect most land owners in San Francisco, but I don't have any numbers handy about the average income of the NIMBY's in that city. Just an intuition that they stand to lose far more in property value than it is practical to pay them.
Side note - Does anyone know of a place to get that kind of information? Maybe it can be triangulated from census data + some other source?
Re: Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
#3TILT sounds like an interesting idea. In San Francisco I suspect our best bet is through California State laws offering density bonuses or provide as-of-right building in some form, that overrides local planning constraints. For example, AB 2501 is currently in the local government committee but is being voted on this Wednesday:
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?...
If you feel compelled like me to support more housing in the bay area, please write or call these Assemblymembers in the local government committee and ask them to support it before Wednesday at 1:30 pm Pacific, even if you're not in their district:
Susan Talamantes Eggman (Chair) - http://asmdc.org/members/a13 Marie Waldron (Vice-Chair) - https://ad75.asmrc.org/ Luis A. Alejo - http://asmdc.org/members/a30/ Susan A. Bonilla - http://asmdc.org/members/a14/ David Chiu - http://asmdc.org/members/a17/ Ken Cooley - http://asmdc.org/members/a08/ Beth Gaines - https://ad06.asmrc.org/ Richard S. Gordon - http://asmdc.org/members/a24/ Eric Linder - https://ad60.asmrc.org/
Re: Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
#4[deleted]
Re: Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
#5I'm dubious that a few bribes will give pause to people who consider their homes in jeopardy.
Re: Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
#6"Everyone in the city stands to gain from growth; productivity in skilled cities rises with population, so when more people move in, all workers’ incomes should rise. But the gains from any particular property development are relatively small and thinly spread, whereas the costs are highly concentrated."
This sounds like yet another case of public choice theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
Re: Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
#7I'm dubious that a few bribes will give pause to people who consider their homes in jeopardy.
I think the objective is to wash-out the casually-opposed with the bribe of reduced property taxes, leaving the smaller hard-core opposition to be tackled.
However they don't offer any novel ideas to address the often-genuine concerns of that hard-core of 'NIMBYs'. Those are the ones opposed on principles or personal experience.
For example in my neighbourhood the building of new developments had resulted in hugely increased road-noise [0], to the extent that it's no longer pleasant to sit in in the front garden. So naturally I'll oppose any further development. No amount of trivial-tax-tinkering will convince me otherwise, since it's my quality-of-life being affected.
[0] multiplied more-so by the fact that modern car tyres are much noisier, but planning permission only considers the number of cars and not their cumulative noise
Re: Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
#8I'm dubious that a few bribes will give pause to people who consider their homes in jeopardy.
I think the objective is to wash-out the casually-opposed with the bribe of reduced property taxes, leaving the smaller hard-core opposition to be tackled. However they don't offer any novel ideas to address the often-genuine concerns of that hard-core of 'NIMBYs'. Those are the ones opposed on principles or personal experience. For example in my neighbourhood the building of new developments had resulted in hugely i…
That's a good example of where orthodox economics breaks down; Money doesn't substitute for a quiet garden.
Re: Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
#9Talk about your clickbait headlines.
Re: Clever reforms can reduce the power of NIMBYs and cut housing costs
#10The article seems to have it arse backwards. Yes, a lot of times this is a situation of "Distributed Costs and Concentrated Benefits", but with the benefits going to the property developer, and the costs to the impacted community. NIMBY is the catchy phrase constructed by marketing to discredit serious concerns people have when they are on the receiving end of someone's 'unacounted externality'. Technology has made it marginally cheaper to organize a resistance, but it is still an uphill battle because of the natural imbalance in the cost/benefits situation.