Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations • Hacker News Board

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#31

Post by ergocoder » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #18

sushsjsuauahab wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I would be pretty angry if someone built a gigantic apartment complex next to my normal house, since I bought it on the impression I would not have that as a neighbor

You should have bought a considerable amount of land next to your property too then. Just like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. I'm sure no one would complain about that since, you know, it'd be yours and not someone else's.

> You should have bought a considerable amount of land next to your property too then.

Your suggestion is much worse. It'd require millions of dollars.

Doing this might also get yelled at by another activist group for buying up all the lands in the city.

A better alternative: we could just join city council and vote to reject any new building.

Not that I agree or disagree with NIMBY, it's just that your suggestion is much worse than the alternative for NIMBY-ists.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#32

Post by throwaway984393 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

spothedog1 wrote: post #19

sushsjsuauahab wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I would be pretty angry if someone built a gigantic apartment complex next to my normal house, since I bought it on the impression I would not have that as a neighbor

If someone built a gigantic apartment complex next to your house it would mean that the demand for housing in your neighborhood was massive and restricted by zoning. Your land value would skyrocket by allowing apartment buildings and you could take a huge pay day and move somewhere farther out from the city. You shouldn't get to halt US GDP growth in its tracks because you want to dictate what your neighbors do with…

In practice, people are pushed out of their homes because they can't afford to live in the neighborhood full of high rise apartments anymore, and they then struggle to make a living (much less find another place to live). It's funny that the GDP itself is prized over the people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of an economy with a high GDP.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#33

Post by mlindner » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

throwaway984393 wrote: post #16

burlesona wrote: post #4

Zoning laws prevent stacking containers more than 2 high. FFS. Zoning as practiced in the US may be the most pervasive, banal evil in the country. It kills our GDP[1], is a major driver of racial inequity[2], increases wealth inequality[3], and creates car-dependency which has horrible public health impacts[4]. Yet somehow nearly no one in America is aware of this or concerned about it. I wish I understood why that i…

> Yet somehow nearly no one in America is aware of this or concerned about it. I wish I understood why that is. Because people love zoning! NIMBY is the rallying cry at zoning board hearings, where whiny people who only care about themselves make sure those Chinese people don't put their stinky laundromats near our nice rich white neighborhood. It's the main reason zoning exists! Particularly the wealthy people who h…

Why blame the rich people rather than the system that allows them to abuse it? Rich people will always exist. The solution is to make it so that abuse is not possible. One possibility: create a state system for zoning and override every local zoning system. Let local zoning boards decide how to zone but make zoning be based on a tiered zoning system. Namely every zoning is a superset of the previous zoning. So industrial areas also allow every other type of zoning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#34

Post by cracell » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #4

Zoning laws prevent stacking containers more than 2 high. FFS. Zoning as practiced in the US may be the most pervasive, banal evil in the country. It kills our GDP[1], is a major driver of racial inequity[2], increases wealth inequality[3], and creates car-dependency which has horrible public health impacts[4]. Yet somehow nearly no one in America is aware of this or concerned about it. I wish I understood why that i…

Just no.

Zoning is extremely important. You should not be allowed to build a factory in the middle of a neighborhood next to a school.

There are certainly bad zoning laws but to say they are all bad is just ignorant nonsense.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#35

Post by ladon86 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

nrmitchi wrote: post #24

gtirloni wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should have bought a considerable amount of land next to your property too then. Just like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. I'm sure no one would complain about that since, you know, it'd be yours and not someone else's.

I'm not here to defend unnecessary zoning restrictions, but your argument here is that the right to not be affected by the externalities of someone else's decisions should be limited to the uber-wealthy?. It's completely reasonable to believe that a given person should be capable of quiet enjoyment of their property without having to purchase everything remotely close to it.

If you want to live in a very desirable area and you also want to have very few neighbors, you should have to pay for that luxury. Right now that luxury is effectively subsidized for a few people who are “grandfathered in”, thanks to the market distortion created by zoning.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#36

Post by cracell » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #23

Asooka wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some form of zoning must exist because you don't want people living next to an incinerator power plant for instance, but like any good thing, it can be taken to an extreme and micromanaged into evil.

That’s not really true. It’s perfectly possible to directly regulate, prohibit and/or tax nuisances and externalities directly without zoning.

Ok.

So basically zoning but pretending it's not called zoning.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#37

Post by mlindner » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

Asooka wrote: post #11

burlesona wrote: post #4

Zoning laws prevent stacking containers more than 2 high. FFS. Zoning as practiced in the US may be the most pervasive, banal evil in the country. It kills our GDP[1], is a major driver of racial inequity[2], increases wealth inequality[3], and creates car-dependency which has horrible public health impacts[4]. Yet somehow nearly no one in America is aware of this or concerned about it. I wish I understood why that i…

Some form of zoning must exist because you don't want people living next to an incinerator power plant for instance, but like any good thing, it can be taken to an extreme and micromanaged into evil.

Why? If people choose to live next to the incinerator that's their choice. You can also have "industrial only" zones for stuff that's pollution emitting, but most things don't need that zoning. Example Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#38

Post by TameAntelope » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

csee wrote: post #26

TameAntelope wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know who Ryan Peterson is? He's not an "outsider", he is the CEO of a digital supply chain company. He's a "foremost expert", to be sure.

A large team under POTUS has been working on this for two weeks and the Flexport CEO can sail through and come up with this within 24 hours of doing that? That's embarrassing and concerning. EDIT yes he's not an outsider to the industry, I mean he's an outsider to the group of officials who were tasked with solving this problem.

If you believe that A) you can't have literally everyone in the industry on POTUS's team and B) private industry often has some of the best expertise, I'm not sure I understand why you would be upset about this outcome.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#39

Post by adam_arthur » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

Something to recognize.

Logistics can be somewhat thought of as a flow problem.

If demand far exceeds supply, and both supply and demand stay constant, the backlog will continue to get worse in severity over time.

For the problem to get better, either demand has to decline, or supply has to increase. However, the ability to expand supply seems limited in the short term. E.g. how long does it take to improve port throughput, or build new container ships?

Translating to the real world, think every ship stuck at the port removes another ship/containers from being able to pick up new goods which creates a self reinforcing problem.

Or thought another way, if the port can only unload 10,000 containers a day, and 20,000 containers a day are showing up, the number of backlogged containers will increase linearly with time.

Just yesterday we hit a record number of ships backlogged at the CA port, so I suspect this is exactly the situation we're in.

The free market will eventually solve by either supply throughput breakthroughs, or prices continuing to rise until demand destruction kicks in.

I want to lay a few stats out here. Retail sales has been ~20% elevated from 2019 levels since the pandemic started, primarily due to government benefits/stimulus checks.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSXFS

Some is due to spending habits changing, but that's likely a smaller portion.

Check real personal income over the course of the pandemic.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RPI

Enhanced UI has ended, but it seems consumers are relying on credit now to maintain the same level of spending. It's not clear how long this will last, but it could be months, judging by the consumer loan data here.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CONSUMER

Note that many consumers paid off debts with the stimulus, is why this chart dips at the end. But we're quickly climbing back. Given lower interest rates, it's likely this can persist a few more months at current trend.

I suspect this will end organically whenever consumer credit is maxed out, and demand falls. But at the same time, wages are increasing fairly rapidly now... Is it possible higher wages can continue to support this new level of demand?

Probably in part, but not entirely.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#40

Post by spothedog1 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

ergocoder wrote: post #25

spothedog1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone built a gigantic apartment complex next to your house it would mean that the demand for housing in your neighborhood was massive and restricted by zoning. Your land value would skyrocket by allowing apartment buildings and you could take a huge pay day and move somewhere farther out from the city. You shouldn't get to halt US GDP growth in its tracks because you want to dictate what your neighbors do with…

> Your land value would skyrocket by allowing apartment buildings That is too far away. That may or may not happen In the short term, the supply just increases significantly. Probably also the traffic and other infrastructure use. Not that I disagree or agree with nimby. Just pointing it out because you only point out one side.

Imagine 2 empty parcels of land in downtown Manhattan, one can have a giant skyscraper of any height built on it and the other has to be a single family home. The parcel of land with no restrictions is going to be worth exponentially more because you can built a massively profitable structure on it, the other one is so regulated that it isn't worth any where near as much. The more profit you could derive from a parcel of land the more its worth. Now I used an extreme example just to get my point across but the same principle holds on a small scale. If your house was rezoned for apartment buildings and the demand existed, someone would come in and buy it off your hands for a huge premium. Since in our hypothetical someone had just built an apartment building next to your house, the value of the land is already high, simply allow your parcel of land to allow more structures would cause it to rise in value.

On the infrastructure side, its a much better deal for you as well, the combined value of all the property taxes from the apartment buildings will be way more than if that lot had remained a house. Since the road, water, sewer and electric lines are already in place nothing new has to be built. You benefit from all those property taxes coming in from the apartment building while the liabilities to the government have barely increased. The local government can use this new surplus of taxes to build new amenities for you.

For traffic, sure but that's why you want to build more pedestrian friendly neighborhoods and public transit so people don't have to drive everywhere. Once you have enough people in a place you could open small shops so they can hang out around the building rather than drive everywhere.