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Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

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Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#81

Post by ethbro »

gumby wrote: post #40

For a bit of micro NIMBYism: my street in Palo Alto just instituted resident-only parking (I was the only one to object). Thus the people who cut our hair, serve our meals etc will have to walk even farther to work (my house is about 1.25 miles from downtown) while the wealthy shoppers park downtown for free. Yes it was a pain having a lot of cars on the street but I didn't feel it was a hardship that I couldn't park…

You should tell your kid to buy the extra parking allotment, then knock on your neighbor's doors and note that "for a small fee" he or she can make sure that no one with a permit parks on the street in front of their house.

"Beautiful street you've got there. It'd be a shame if someone were to start parking on it. Every. Day."

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#83

Post by ethbro »

jkimmel wrote: post #79
gumby wrote: post #40

For a bit of micro NIMBYism: my street in Palo Alto just instituted resident-only parking (I was the only one to object). Thus the people who cut our hair, serve our meals etc will have to walk even farther to work (my house is about 1.25 miles from downtown) while the wealthy shoppers park downtown for free. Yes it was a pain having a lot of cars on the street but I didn't feel it was a hardship that I couldn't park…

If SF housing politics has taught me anything, it's that the nastiest of human behavior is revealed by parking disagreements :( I never understood the residential parking permit argument anyway. Public dollars built the road, which now contains public parking spots. Implementing residential parking permits is a transfer of value from the public domain to private land owners. In Palo Alto (and the rest of the Bay Area…

People tend to forget things are public when they're using them, but accutely remember that fact when others are doing so.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#84

Post by Tempest1981 »

Some of us just wanted a 3 bedroom house on a 5000 sq ft lot -- so we could have a small yard with room for a dog and BBQ. Maybe a kid playing outside.

Now we're being told we're greedy, and our neighborhoods should be replaced with 3 story townhouses on 1200 sq ft lots. No room for Fido.

Makes me wonder what we're working insane hours for -- to settle for permanent apartment style living. At least we don't have cage houses yet.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#85

Post by linkregister »

lukeschlather wrote: post #75
muninn_ wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how many people are going to move there to live in a bus? I certainly wouldn't. If property values get too high I'll just not move there. I don't understand this mentality where everybody thinks they should be able to afford to live in the best cities in the country, especially in California. It's just simple supply and demand. If housing prices get too high and people can't afford to live there they will live so…

I think you both have the causality backward. Vanishingly few people are moving to California to live in a bus. People are moving to California to get better jobs, and most of them can comfortably afford to live in California. The people who are ending up in buses have lived in California since housing was cheap enough that they didn't have a problem, or since they were children. People who can't afford to live in Ca…

I know you and the other poster are using "California" as a shorthand for "Coastal California", but the Central Valley and the Inland Empire are very affordable.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#86

Post by jkimmel »

wfunction wrote: post #52
SamReidHughes wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be sure California exports a ton of its food.

I feel like I can also be sure the export isn't really going to drop much with people coming in, but the domestic usage will rise if you keep letting people in. So the mere fact that we export doesn't really seem to help things.

There is a set of assumptions in your argument that I believe are false.

1. Unregulated water use that allows for production of export cash crops will continue

This could easily be fixed by regulating water use properly, such that farmers have economic incentive to grow crops that are less water intensive given that CA is not water rich.

2. Market prices of current export and current import crops will hold constant regardless of growth

That's not how markets work.

If there was a sudden surge in lettuce demand, farmers in Salinas would respond to increasing prices by switching some fields currently used for export crops to lettuce, which would be consumed locally.

This is aided by point (1) above, where we could push this shift with water regulations.

On the whole -- your concerns seem best addressed by sensible regulation of water in CA, which is a long term political problem. Opposing the farm lobby is well known third rail in the CA Leg.

Nativist population control programs are not the solution to a market failure of water distribution, however they might be implemented. Opposing housing construction is even a really poor way to implement a nativist population control program.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#87

Post by golemotron »

closeparen wrote: post #57
golemotron wrote: post #33

Maybe the answer is to stop growing and let other parts of the country grow. The brain drain to SV has been disastrous for other communities. It's contributed to inequality and deep geographic/political polarization. Yes, you can downvote me but consider formulating a counter-argument.

Unless you can get a Constitutional amendment to legalize and then implement controls on internal migration, this isn't an option you have. People are already moving here faster than housing is being built, and they have been for a long time. Maintaining a housing shortage doesn't prevent migration, it just means that when migration happens it results in a pressure-cooker of a housing market. We'd need an enormous am…

You don't stop growth by limiting it, you slow it by creating more attractive alternatives. Consider start-up zones in the interior of the US wired with fiber and zero taxation for 10 years. It is something the federal government could do to start alternative hubs.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#89

Post by mattnewton »

golemotron wrote: post #87
closeparen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you can get a Constitutional amendment to legalize and then implement controls on internal migration, this isn't an option you have. People are already moving here faster than housing is being built, and they have been for a long time. Maintaining a housing shortage doesn't prevent migration, it just means that when migration happens it results in a pressure-cooker of a housing market. We'd need an enormous am…

You don't stop growth by limiting it, you slow it by creating more attractive alternatives. Consider start-up zones in the interior of the US wired with fiber and zero taxation for 10 years. It is something the federal government could do to start alternative hubs.

Seriously, if you offered 0-2% tax and high speed internet people would come out of the woodwork. But who is incentivized to do that?

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#90

Post by enf »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #84

Some of us just wanted a 3 bedroom house on a 5000 sq ft lot -- so we could have a small yard with room for a dog and BBQ. Maybe a kid playing outside. Now we're being told we're greedy, and our neighborhoods should be replaced with 3 story townhouses on 1200 sq ft lots. No room for Fido. Makes me wonder what we're working insane hours for -- to settle for permanent apartment style living. At least we don't have cage…

Every person who moves into one of the new townhouses on the 1200 sqft lots is a person who is not outbidding you for the house on the 5000 sqft lot.
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