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Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

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Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#241

Post by princearthur »

epistasis wrote: post #227
princearthur wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed artificial housing supply restrictions are about 100000000% more important. Alas, a portion of the progressive left was co-opted by the housing barons many decades ago. I believe California voters would be more progressive otherwise. Here in SF, a good example is the leading progressive mayoral candidate, Peskin. He's basically a housing subversive. He'll pay lip service to it, then sabotage YIMBY efforts. Ear…

It's been rather shocking hearing one President candidate push Peskin-like policy (Trump), and the other the policies of Peskin's nemeses (Harris). Of course since Harris is from Oakland, slightly younger, and doesn't come from trust fund money, her background would be more likely to align with fair housing policy than Peskin.

It's really an amazing study in political science. Progressives are supposed to be all about helping the poor, but some were sold a camouflaged dystopia.

To reach utopia - the fantasy goes - we must first travel through a dystopia in which the poor are enserfed by the housing barons, paying upwards of 70% of their income in rent. Unfortunately the dystopia never ends in practice.

Then there's the perplexing question of how real estate taxation got to this point. As the saying goes, a real estate family that pays any income tax at all needs to fire their tax advisor.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#242

Post by insane_dreamer »

pixl97 wrote: post #206
insane_dreamer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are incorrect. This has nothing to do with regulations. It's the same as a farmer secretly buying up neighboring already irrigated fields from bankrupt farmers, and not planting on them in order to be able to raise the price on their own crops, assuming that the cost of importing the same crops from elsewhere is prohibitive and there is no other readily arable land nearby (thus they have a monopoly on the local m…

The Onion Futures Act for example.

pretty crazy that there is an act of Congress that concerns a single vegetable only

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#243

Post by insane_dreamer »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #224
93po wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just metaphorically crushed under the boot of capitalism

And the boot of big government. The vacant store has a 100 miles of literal desert in each direction and nobody can build a competing store because the environmental review process is weaponized.

that's not the issue -- it's much much more expensive to build a store on undeveloped land, even if it weren't restricted, than remodel an existing structure

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#244

Post by [deleted] »

otterley wrote: post #213
rawgabbit wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ccfj.net/HOAFLevict6yearold.html 55-AND-OVER COMMUNITY WANTS TO EVICT FAMILY WITH 6-YEAR-OLD

State law enforces age restrictions on property in many circumstances. Adults can’t enter school property without registering with the main office. State law prohibits entry into bars and cannabis shops for people under certain ages. State law can prohibit minors from entering adult-oriented shops. And we not just make lawful but even encourage the creation of housing intended for aging adults: https://www.hud.gov/pr…

[deleted]

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#245

Post by insane_dreamer »

015a wrote: post #46

While holding a lease on prime competitor real estate seemingly strictly for the purpose of stopping competition from moving in feels very, very scummy; it also feels like it isn't the whole story. Competitors don't need to move in to the vacant K-mart. There are always other options; those "other options" is how 99% of grocery stores get opened, Walmarts don't "move in" to old K-marts by-and-large. Is the local gove…

Of course another store could open -- but it greatly raises the barrier to entry if the competitor has to build on new land from scratch; most won't do it. Or maybe they'll open some small store that isn't really a threat to the Vons

> when you read something that's so comic-book-villain evil, something about the story is being misrepresented or is just wrong

seriously? companies pull stuff like that all the time to try to shut out the competition. It's not much different than Microsoft bundling IE with Windows to kill Netscape -- forgoing revenue on something it could charge for, to kill the competition and then have a pretty lousy browser for a long time

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#246

Post by insane_dreamer »

epistasis wrote: post #8
forgetfreeman wrote: post #2

Behold: the Market doing Market shit.

This isn't a "market" doing something, it's a monopolist doing monopolist stuff. One kind of precludes the other...

Not so. Cornering the market is what every company would attempt to do if there weren't regulations that restrict their ability to do so.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#247

Post by njtransit »

epistasis wrote: post #190
ipaddr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't low rises safer then earthquake zone

In most of California, older low-rise buildings are by far the most dangerous buildings out there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_story_building Rebuilding these as new modern apartments would make everyone a lot safer in case of an earthquake. Also, we don't outlaw ways of life based on safety. For example, larger cities are far safer when it comes to fire deaths, than small towns, but we're not about to outlaw…

Your linked Wikipedia article doesn't say that low-rise buildings are particularly dangerous. A "soft story" building is one that doesn't have good sheer strength due to missing sheer walls inside. It has nothing to do with being a low-rise or apartment building. As mentioned in the Wikipedia article, apartment buildings in Turkey were by far the most dangerous place to be during the 2023 earthquake.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#248

Post by insane_dreamer »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #130
class3shock wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a legal mechanism exists (adding a restriction to a deed as part of a private sale) does not mean that its use is legal. This is not "using" the government to disable other market participants, this is illegally abusing the mechanism of a deed restriction to monopolize a market and extort people.

> This is not "using" the government to disable other market participants, this is illegally abusing the mechanism of a deed restriction to monopolize a market and extort people. Betting on government inaction for breaking the law is still using the government. If it is illegal, then a competing grocery store should be able to open its doors and any lawsuits thrown out. Considering Albertsons’ and other grocery store…

the government doesn't go around enforcing contracts; the government provides a mechanism whereby a person who is wronged (by another party breaking their contract) can appeal and get some justice (without which you have the aggrieved party going over and shooting the other party).

a competing company could open a store there anyway and then fight the battle in court; they might even win, but the cost of the court case would prevent most companies from even trying, after all groceries are a relatively low margin business--if this were a gold mine instead of grocery store you can be sure someone would have opened it already and fought it in court

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#249

Post by iamevn »

searealist wrote: post #238
kelnos wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HOAification of America has gone too far. There are some places where it's hard to find a home not subject to a HOA. I don't think "well live somewhere else" is a reasonable answer to that complaint. That's definitely a "I got mine, so eff off" sort of response.

Who wants to invest in a neighborhood that can be ruined by a few bad apples not maintaining their properties?

Why would people need to invest in a neighborhood? Houses are for living in.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#250

Post by amanaplanacanal »

searealist wrote: post #237
kelnos wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're definitely not the kind of neighbor I'd like to have. Animals poop. That's life.

Then don't move into an HOA? Some of us have standards: no cars, poop, or weeds on lawns.

There are now places where everything is in an HOA. That's gotta suck for folks who have to live there because of work or other commitments.
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