California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers • Hacker News Board

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#161

Post by cudgy » Thu, Apr 14, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

Scott_Sanderson wrote: post #22

mikeyouse wrote: post #4

Unfortunately, these pieces could almost always be reduced to "housing costs". They address it a bit in this most recent one, but homelessness / school enrollment / natural population growth / middle class jobs / energy costs can all be traced back to the huge housing deficit that's accumulated over the past 30 or 40 years.

I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. Single unit is the most expensive and least efficient zoning rule. Getting rid of it would bring housing costs down. Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates!

Build cheaper housing farther outside of town where the land is cheaper and provide a bullet train to transport people into the expensive land areas. It might take time for the train to be built, but these areas have had decades to solve the problem while frittering away trying to build a few, token, and small small low cost housing projects. There really is no other solution for many areas like San Fran and New York … the land is simply not there and displacement of current landowners is expensive, impractical, and ineffective.

They need to bite the bullet … train … or some other effectively fast transport.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#162

Post by TimTheTinker » Thu, Apr 14, 2022, 11:22 PM UTC

TimTheTinker wrote: post #123

sofixa wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> NIMBYs really are selfish and shallow people My parents bought a house in an almost-rural region of southern California in 1991. It was difficult to lose the beautiful field across the street when a housing development went in, but they shrugged their shoulders and moved on -- no biggie. But more recently, the tiny empty lot next to theirs has been sold and 3 really ugly apartments just went in that are totally out…

To those who disagree, would it be right to just let every developer's plan go through without review? I'm not saying "no development", I'm promoting the equivalent of code reviews on PRs before merge.

Housing developers shouldn't have free reign to maximize their profits regardless of costs to a city.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#163

Post by ajmurmann » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:54 AM UTC

cudgy wrote: post #160

ajmurmann wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning usually gets decided on on a very local level. The people who show up to community meetings tend to be older, white home owners who don't want the value of their home to go down. Fear of "undesirables" of course also likely plays a role and when I've heard it in person, even that gets wrapped in fear of that bringing down home values and schools.

Perhaps more white owners show up in majority white neighborhoods, but what evidence is there that white owners disproportionately show up to these meetings? I assume you can provide it based on this comment.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/nimbys-do...