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Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

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111–120 of 321 posts

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#111
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…

There are lots of small towns in valleys that literally cannot expand outward from the one highway that passes through them. Needing a large flat lot in a mountain town is a huge challenge. The article discusses this.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#112
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally just regulatory capture. It has nothing to do with capitalism. In a truly capitalistic economy, there would be no regulations preventing competitors from coming in and creating competition. The propaganda doesn't have to be good when nobody understands what is and isn't capitalism anyways.

This isn't regulatory capture, this is deed restrictions. HOAs, water rights, mineral rights et.al. use this same mechanism.

To be honest, I think all of those should be abolished as well.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#113

It's funny to see Matt Stoller complain about land use restrictions here, as he refuses to acknowledge the problem for residential building: https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/1824155610201432264 If apartment buildings are banned in 96% of residential land in California, with most of the 4% already built up with apartments, isn't that pretty similar to the commercial land use situation in Mammoth, CA?

So the majority of people want to keep it that way? Then it might just essentially boil down to democracy issues. Companies on the other hand don’t get a vote. So if all grocery companies banded together and voted for a law to allow monopolies then it wouldn’t be the same thing as if all the humans voted for it. Companies do love to lobby though, but lobbying and voting are still two different things. So if all the p…

The state of democracy in the US into bad that you cannot really conclude anything about what “the majority of people want” from what the law happens to be.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#114
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean free market? Because I feel like land use restrictions are antithetical to a free market. In which case, your comment makes no sense.

The owner of the land sold it with restrictions that benefitted them. That's pretty much free market in a nutshell.

I'm not at all convinced about the idea of selling something and being able to limit what the buyer can do with it.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#115
post #56
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HOAs often enacts rules that would be illegal for a city council to enact. (between the US constitution, US federal laws, State constitution, State laws, and county laws there are often strict limits to what can be done that HOAs are not effected by). Courts have reigned in some of that, but there is still a lot that a HOA can do. HOAs also tend to be too small - it is hard to find someone qualified who wants to be i…

My sister just moved into a place that has an HOA. She's actively trying to get it suspended permanently. They live on a lake that attracts very aggressive Canadian geese. The geese do geese things like eat and poop lots of poop. The HOA fined them before they moved into the house for having goose poop in their back yard. For me, it's hilarious. I take handfuls of corn and stuff to throw around their backyard when I…

My HOA is worded such that it must exist for at least 30 years and there are no facilities to dissolving it before that time (after that time, a simple majority can vote to dissolve it, so long as the city agrees to incorporate the land and infrastructure). In this case, it's because the HOA is responsible for the loans taken out and long term leases to manage the sub division's infrastructure.

And yes, geese love to poop everywhere.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#116
post #100
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I understand whataboutism as bringing up something that is somewhat related in order to shift the focus away from the original topic. ...or it's to draw attention that the author might be selectively applying arguments whenever it suits him, and readers shouldn't take him at face value. Between the two articles, it looks like Stroller is against big corporations first and foremost, and musters whatever argument is h…

> In the case of house builders, he's explicitly says land use regulations aren't a significant factor ("just pointing at over-regulation in and of itself isn’t a satisfying explanation"), Umm... what? Those are two quite different statements. You can't conflate them that way and be arguing in good faith. You have either misunderstood his stance or are deliberately misrepresenting it.

Here's his tweet promoting that article:

>I took on the YIMBY’s here and pointed out that the problem of housing prices and construction is about consolidation of homebuilders, not an upsurge in annoying people who want to maintain neighborhood character.

I'm sure you can come up with a contrived worldview that proclaims those two statements, but doesn't believe "land use regulations aren't a significant factor", but it's pretty clear that's his view, even if he doesn't say those literal words.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#117
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HOAs often enacts rules that would be illegal for a city council to enact. (between the US constitution, US federal laws, State constitution, State laws, and county laws there are often strict limits to what can be done that HOAs are not effected by). Courts have reigned in some of that, but there is still a lot that a HOA can do. HOAs also tend to be too small - it is hard to find someone qualified who wants to be i…

> between the US constitution, US federal laws, State constitution, State laws, and county laws there are often strict limits to what can be done that HOAs are not effected (sic) by HOAs cannot enforce rules that conflict with State or Federal law or the Constitution.

That's a bit disingenuous.

HOA's can (and regularly do) enforce rules that governmental entities are constitutionally prohibited from enforcing.

Yes, technically not a violation because the HOA isn't technically government.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#118

These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal. It's basically a corporation trying to act as a pseudogovernment, enforcing regulations on land that they no longer own themselves. One could argue that HOAs are kind of a similar issue, acting like a pseudogovernment, with restrictions on housing passing on down indefinitely, even to new owners who may not have wanted to agree to them (but with housing being as…

> These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal An easier solution is mandatory sunsets after a period of time. Because the flip side of making them illegal is you'll have a lot more land with conservation easements being exploited for resources.

> conservation easements

I.e. easements that come from law rather than seller stipulation? Seems an easy distinction to make.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#119
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you give some examples that are applicable today? HOAs are pretty famously restrictive of free speech (house color restrictions, yard sign restrictions, political activism restrictions), and free association (visitor restrictions). Their are some speech restrictions that governments apply to historic structures, but you would have a hard time as a government trying to register the name of every visitor to a res…

>house color restrictions And have courts ruled that cities (or other governments) can't impose color restrictions? >yard sign restrictions, political activism restrictions Not sure what's meant by "political activism restrictions", but cities most definitely have restrictions on signs. You can't put a brightly flashing LED sign next to a busy intersection, or plant a billboard to make some money on the side. >and fr…

==Not sure what's meant by "political activism restrictions"==

Rules that literally say, "You cannot put up election-related signs."

==I've literally never encountered this, unless you count having to register to use the visitor parking.==

Rules that say how many people you can have at your house, how long they can stay, etc., etc.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#120
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sister just moved into a place that has an HOA. She's actively trying to get it suspended permanently. They live on a lake that attracts very aggressive Canadian geese. The geese do geese things like eat and poop lots of poop. The HOA fined them before they moved into the house for having goose poop in their back yard. For me, it's hilarious. I take handfuls of corn and stuff to throw around their backyard when I…

I don't want to live in a neighborhood where my neighbor's yards are full of poop. This is true even if the unit is unoccupied.

Goose poop is not very smelly since it's mostly fibre from their all-grass diet. It's not like a backyard full of dog poop. It's no worse than applying manure to fertilize the soil.

Source: I've stepped in goose poop many, many times up here in Canada and it's the least bad poop to step in.

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