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

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#41

Post by spenczar5 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

cracell wrote: post #34

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.

Why not? It sounds like you think this is obvious, but it isn’t to me.

I live in an area with occasional grandfathered-in exceptions to zoning rules. There’s a cafe run out of a house, and a butcher shop run on a residential street corner between houses. And its absolutely lovely!

I would have no problem with people making things (“a factory”) next to a school.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#42

Post by poorjohnmacafee » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

csee wrote: post #2

If true, it's extremely depressing that it required a viral post on social media.

It is is depressing, that clear and obvious solutions were missing at economy-critical supply chain infra.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

But also it's 2021 where people are the most cynical we've ever been, it's almost like there's interest groups in the US that want a fanning of inflation or delayed recovery through shortages.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#43

Post by cowsandmilk » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

csee wrote: post #17

kayodelycaon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally, yes. But that assumes people are looking into the right places at the right time, with the knowledge to understand what they are looking at. That’s a pretty tall order for any large system.

If the POTUS personally commits to resolving the issue, it is concerning that an outsider can literally sail through and identify a high leverage solution. Like what the hell is going on with our institutions. There might be an explanation but it looks really bad from the outside.

Is there any evidence this is a high leverage solution. Right now, it is an idea being tried. We dont have the results…

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#44

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #33

throwaway984393 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 indust…

Why would you assume a state system would be better and not even worse?

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#45

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

spenczar5 wrote: post #41

cracell wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why not? It sounds like you think this is obvious, but it isn’t to me. I live in an area with occasional grandfathered-in exceptions to zoning rules. There’s a cafe run out of a house, and a butcher shop run on a residential street corner between houses. And its absolutely lovely! I would have no problem with people making things (“a factory”) next to a school.

This is a perfect reason why most zoning sucks - but not all zoning sucks. Current zoning prevents most neighborhoods from being walkable. You can't have cafes and grocery stores near most houses.

But replace cute cafe in your example with a landfill or a cement plant and see if it's still awesome.

This is why some zoning is good.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#46

Post by Doctor_Fegg » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

cracell wrote: post #34

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.

You don't need zoning laws for that. The UK doesn't have them, yet still has pretty stringent controls ("planning permission") on what you can build. Explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning#United_Kingdom

Each area - typically a district, which is a sub-unit of a county or city - has a "local plan" which is decided democratically by the local government. "The plan does not provide specific guidance on what type of buildings will be allowed in a given location, rather it provides general principles for development and goals for the management of urban change."

All of this sits under a National Planning Policy Framework set by central Government.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#47

Post by spothedog1 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

throwaway984393 wrote: post #32

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…

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.

If the demand exists to build high rises then those people would already be pushed out at an ever faster rate. If you take a plot of land that previously had 4 units on it and turn it into a high rise with 100 units, then you can fit 96 higher income people onto that plot of land. In the scenario where you don't build that high rise, those 96 higher income people simply go into the existing housing stock and push those people out anyway. You can think of a high rise as a sponge soaking up demand. In our hypothetical with the high rise, the existing neighborhood's housing stock is in less demand (and cheaper) because all the wealthier people moved into the high rise.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#48

Post by OnlineGladiator » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #38

csee wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He's upset that the government is (seemingly) incompetent. Defending their incompetence does not change the fact that they were incompetent as someone was so easily able to propose a solution while we have little reason to believe the government had a plan. It doesn't matter if that someone is the world's foremost expert (he's not, by the way) - what good is the government if they can't solve problems they're in charge of fixing?

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#49

Post by trinovantes » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:01 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…

I think the bigger issue is that our culture sees housing as an investment vehicle rather than a commodity like food. You wouldn't stockpile a warehouse full of non perishables with the expectation that they will skyrocket in price. Likewise, nobody should buy multiple houses with the expectation that they will skyrocket in price.

Without this mindset, I doubt anyone would be so opposed to change zoning laws as cities grow/change

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#50

Post by Misdicorl » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

csee wrote: post #5

TameAntelope wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is crisis management supposed to go? What would have been a preferable source of this change?

If it was a high leverage decision, you would have hoped one of the officials appointed to fix the situation would have already noticed and fixed it. So either they are completely incompetent or the decision didn't matter much.

> So either they are completely incompetent or the decision didn't matter much.

Or the field always wins. Every year a large team of highly paid professionals is responsible for selecting the best professional sports prospects to join their team. The team that goes first (almost) never gets the best player. Its not because they're incompetent. And its not because the decision doesn't matter- these are multi billion dollar organizations, and the decision is very much a high leverage one that will directly impact their fortunes.

Sometimes finding the best path is extremely difficult. Sometimes even when someone does see the best path, its still hard to recognize it as such. So I don't think its surprising at all for the best idea to come from outside a team devoted to solving a problem. Especially in today's age when more people than ever can propose solutions and more people than ever can see those proposals and bubble up the ones that sound good to them.