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Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

darrellowens.substack.com

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Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#121

Post by apsurd »

Exoristos wrote: post #105
apsurd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i really do take you seriously. and i learn from you. but also: come on, Japan is the planet's most economically significant TINY ISLAND. you don't have to reach for capitalist conspiracy theories to reason about Japan's issues. and i say this as a kind of inevitable anti-capitalist!

What makes you so confident in your opinion?

I've lived various lifestyles. If i was to bluntly answer your question, really it's because I hate cars. I understand that global economies need last mile delivery infrastructure and so there's roads. I get that.

But if you ask me to live a life of Suburban commuting, I'd tell you, from experience: that's inhumane.

I'm born and raised in Los Angeles. It's not the absolute worst, but it gives me the credibility I need to say yeah i'd rather literally walk and bike everywhere than suffer the inhumanity of car culture.

and that's what i do.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#122

Post by HDThoreaun »

ajmurmann wrote: post #101
theluketaylor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a real danger lurking among the zoning reform efforts we are seeing all over the english-speaking world. There are so many levers baked into the zoning code to prevent development that it's easy to produce a policy that appears to unwind the restrictions without actually permitting any real progress. My city upzoned the entire city from 1 to 3 units per lot across the whole city a few years ago, which is grea…

The entire parking minimum mess only exists because we have street parking for which we pay a very high price, but the average voter thinks of as free. I wish we could get rid of it entirely, but that would never fly because it's completely unimaginable to voters. Policy is fun and great; politics is cancer...

Street parking is free in that it does not cost extra. Just like credit cards are free even though they charge merchants 3%. Everyone loves taking advantage of the commons.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#123

Post by Swizec »

josuepeq wrote: post #109

I like the idea! I also like Dingbats. And parking. Removing parking minimums is a noble idea, but one thing I have noticed is that the new “parking free” apartment buildings in San Francisco, such as the Tenderloin and SOMA, are having a hard time getting all of their units filled, even with prices slashed. This is a problem that buildings with parking seem to not have. Even with good transit, the city is much easie…

> food deserts abound, and the main retail and entertainment areas are also lopsided on the east side of town, with the other being 4th street, which is more like a destination retail area

Have lived in SOMA for the past 9 years or so. No car. Works great.

To be fair I think of The Avenues and the Marina as almost another planet. It’s easier to get to Oakland than over there. Although I do run past the Marina every weekend, but most people don’t do weekly 16mile runs just for fun.

In my area most daily trips are easier by bicycle or public transit than by car. My gym is 15min by car, 12min by bicycle, 20min by bus, and 25min by foot away. During rush hour, which is when I go to the gym, that car trip easily turns into 20min+. I can literally outpace cars uphill on my bicycle thanks to slight fudging around red lights.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#124

Post by Exoristos »

apsurd wrote: post #121
Exoristos wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you so confident in your opinion?

I've lived various lifestyles. If i was to bluntly answer your question, really it's because I hate cars. I understand that global economies need last mile delivery infrastructure and so there's roads. I get that. But if you ask me to live a life of Suburban commuting, I'd tell you, from experience: that's inhumane. I'm born and raised in Los Angeles. It's not the absolute worst, but it gives me the credibility I nee…

You were replying to another commenter so patronizingly, which isn't a common interaction, that I was puzzled. But then I realized you do so because you are really just so confident in your opinion on this matter. And I assumed that means this is the opinion held by your social group or political organization, but then I thought I'd let you explain.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#125

Post by HDThoreaun »

lettergram wrote: post #20

I’m still shocked by the notion that a highly dense population is inherently good. Pollution increases, energy requirements increase, crime per-capita increases, babies per-capita tend to decrease, time spent in traffic or commuting increases, space per person decreases. I get that you get more food or entertainment options, but in general it doesn’t appear that increasing density actually improves quality of life. T…

Very few claim it is inherently good. The claim is that people should be allowed to build dense housing on their land if they want to, and their neighbors shouldnt be able to stop them. Youve completely flipped the goal of the yimby movement.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#126

Post by HDThoreaun »

cyberax wrote: post #103
apsurd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i really do take you seriously. and i learn from you. but also: come on, Japan is the planet's most economically significant TINY ISLAND. you don't have to reach for capitalist conspiracy theories to reason about Japan's issues. and i say this as a kind of inevitable anti-capitalist!

Tokyo's issues are not caused by it being on a tiny island. As I said, Japan has literally millions of empty houses right now: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/17/realestate/japan-empty-ho... And there's nothing "conspiracy" about what I'm saying. There's no secret global cabal that wants to push people into cities. It's simply caused by a toxic confluence of ideology and economic forces.

Tokyo's crowding is absolutely due to Japan being an island with essentially zero natural resources. Literally everyone wants to go to tokyo because there are no other jobs.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#127

Post by HDThoreaun »

KerrAvon wrote: post #41
hackerlight wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent will go down which will reduce suffering. Look at changes in rent in Austin vs San Francisco. One builds and the other doesn't.

Austin has infinite land and equally infinite highways/pavement/traffic.

Theres nothing stopping SF and especially SV from becoming much denser. The limited land sure is not the problem.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#128

Post by earthwalker99 »

fasthands9 wrote: post #52
earthwalker99 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 1970s, left-wing activists opposed the construction of dingbat apartments and allied with liberal homeowners to pass the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance (NPO), which effectively finished off housing construction in the city Short of sleazebag propaganda, there is no logic or context, historical or otherwise, that can justify describing this as "left wing." They are right wing activists by definition. I d…

Local chapters of the Sierra Club still routinely oppose many types of infill housing development. I believe the national org is now YIMBY and most chapters are, but there are certainly many progressive/environmental orgs that have blocked construction for decades. https://sf.curbed.com/2020/2/6/21122825/affordable-housing-h...

Are you trying to make a point? If so, what is it?

The Sierra Club are liberal activists with zero historically left wing affiliations or common causes. It's entirely irrelevant as far as I can tell.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#129

Post by earthwalker99 »

linguae wrote: post #50
earthwalker99 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 1970s, left-wing activists opposed the construction of dingbat apartments and allied with liberal homeowners to pass the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance (NPO), which effectively finished off housing construction in the city Short of sleazebag propaganda, there is no logic or context, historical or otherwise, that can justify describing this as "left wing." They are right wing activists by definition. I d…

There was a major environmentalist and neighborhood preservationist movement in California during the 1960s and 1970s that helped fuel anti-growth measures. While they weren't strictly leftist (there are right-wing slow- and anti-growth advocates), they did complement the views of the New Left, which embraced environmentalism and came out of the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s. The San Francisco freeway revolt…

[flagged]

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#130

Post by Negitivefrags »

ajmurmann wrote: post #113
ipaddr wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the people with the most money decide?

That's not how markets work

Isn't that exactly how markets work?

Isn't that exactly the whole point of capitalism?

If people with money want strawberries, they buy more strawberries. Price of strawberries goes up. Farmers who could choose to grow strawberries or some other thing decide that they want to grow strawberries because the price is high. More strawberries are grown.

The people who have the money to buy the strawberries indirectly caused more strawberries to be created.

So yeah, the people with the money decide what gets created. This is a good thing.

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