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

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#51

Post by throwaway984393 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

spothedog1 wrote: post #47

throwaway984393 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tho…

I think you might be missing the point, which is that the entire scenario should not be happening. If people are getting priced out of their houses, or people are building high-rises that inconvenience people, that needs to be solved, not ignored "because GDP". Making people's lives worse or uprooting them in service of general economic gain isn't a good strategy. I mean, we certainly have used that rationale in the past (genocide of the American Indian comes to mind) but it's probably not in the best interests of the nation.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#52

Post by burlesona » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:05 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 to stop that. You can regulate against nuisances directly - for example: no industrial noise levels within 2000’ of an existing neighborhood. You also don’t even _need_ to do that because it’s uneconomical: land in a neighborhood is worth too much per square foot to be used for industrial development.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#53

Post by csee » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:06 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.

I would be sympathetic to that if this fix was something highly complicated or requiring significant expertise to come up with. Then I could understand this oversight. And perhaps that's the case here, and it's just my ignorance speaking, but "relax stifling zoning restrictions to immediately double capacity" doesn't seem like it fits into that category of things.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#54

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

I thought that Flexport CEO's tweet stream was really great - had a ton of insightful, first hand information and made the problem very clear. Especially import was the feedback loops showing how the system was essentially deadlocked, in the classical sense of the term.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#55

Post by snowwrestler » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:07 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…

This is not a zoning problem, because the zoning laws have been in place for decades, while the port worked fine.

There is another root cause at work here. Temporarily suspending the zoning is just one of many short-term treatments to resolve a backlog.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#56

Post by burlesona » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

cracell wrote: post #36

burlesona wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Zoning means central planners literally draw a map saying what goes where, and generally make all kinds of aesthetic decisions to go along with it. There is a big gap between that level of micromanaging land use and regulating against nuisances.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#57

Post by ec109685 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

adam_arthur wrote: post #39

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 thro…

You can’t flat out say the rise in retail sales is due to stimulus. There are a lot of disruptions over the last year that have shifted spend from things like dining out and travel.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#58

Post by samstave » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

adam_arthur wrote: post #39

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 thro…

Super-hyper-inflation is said to be coming by Jack Dorsey.

Alex Jones was quoted as saying that he knows "high up elites" who told him war is coming ~February (don't kill me I am just quoting what he just said this week.

---

So, with this backlog, inflation, war... and china's shenanigans all around...

I am pessimistic on the next 8 months.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#59

Post by jdkee » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

spothedog1 wrote: post #40

ergocoder wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 parce…

So the opening scene to the Pixar movie, "Up"?

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#60

Post by jayd16 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

poorjohnmacafee wrote: post #42

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.

What's clear and obvious about temporarily suspending rules that were presumably in place for a reason? Seems more like a non-obvius value call was made.