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A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

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Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Renters are a growing political force. Renters (often under rent control) are NIMBYs as well, don't understand or are convinced that supply and demand don't apply to housing.

Rent control is almost exclusive to California and New York. Ref: http://www.landlord.com/rent_control_laws_by_state.htm

Your link doesn't support your claim, as it indicates rent control exists in D.C., several cities in Maryland, over 100 jurisdictions in N.J., as well as a smaller (but still large) number of jurisdictions in NY and almost a dozen in CA (there's also some more in CA listed in a heading of “other than rent control”, which seems likely to be intended to indicate something that is not rent control but raises some similar issues for landlords, but the links all appear to be dead links, so the actual specific meaning is less than clear.)

So, if it's “almost exclusive” to any pair of states, it's New Jersey and New York, not NY and CA.

(The source is also inaccurate in at least one respect, in that NY by the description given on the page and CA due to Costa-Hawkins both meet the criteria for a “Yes” in State Prohibits or Preempts Rent Control column, but both have blanks in that column.)

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#182
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of a city is people aren't dependent on cars/parking. Otherwise, it's not a city.

So Los Angeles isn't a city? What do you call it then?

It's gettin' there!

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#183
post #3

In Japan, zoning is handled federally; and the result is much more affordable cities. "Why Tokyo is the land of rising home construction but not prices" https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3... An overview of zoning practices there: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

Federal zoning would be really difficult to get done constitutionally, but state level zoning wouldn’t be as hard and would have most of the same benefits, ie. reducing the power the nimbys. However there’s no reason to think that would fix it all, transportation planning, design, and funding is almost entirely a state and federal affair, and the nimbys still torpedo all sorts of things that would be great for the re…

There is a hack to it: abolish zoning altogether. Replace it with sanitary codes

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Japan is intensely racist Would you care to provide some substance to this claim? You're tarring over a hundred million people with a very nasty brush.

See below, written 10 hours before your question. There is still overt, broadly-recognized and tolerated ethnic and hereditary discrimination in Japan, not just in hiring and school admissions but in stuff as basic as housing. Japan appears to be stuck in the 1960s in terms of public policy on this issue.

Below is a discussion of Burakumin and ethnic Koreans in Japan, which doesn't appear to be racially predicated, unless you're operating under an unusual definition of race. You've specifically claimed that "Japan" is "intensely racist". Are you going to claim that Koreans and/or Burakumin are racially distinct from Japanese?

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See below, written 10 hours before your question. There is still overt, broadly-recognized and tolerated ethnic and hereditary discrimination in Japan, not just in hiring and school admissions but in stuff as basic as housing. Japan appears to be stuck in the 1960s in terms of public policy on this issue.

Below is a discussion of Burakumin and ethnic Koreans in Japan, which doesn't appear to be racially predicated, unless you're operating under an unusual definition of race. You've specifically claimed that "Japan" is "intensely racist". Are you going to claim that Koreans and/or Burakumin are racially distinct from Japanese?

Whatever semantic thread you're trying to cling to in order to keep this argument alive, I'm not interested.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their point was that Japan is ethnically and culturally homogeneous enough that they don't feel the need to implement exclusionary zoning, regardless of how racist and xenophobic the general population is.

Japan is neither ethnically nor culturally homogenous despite an image at home or abroad regarding this; see Sugimoto’s Japanese Society if you want a book-length takedown of it. For an example of how this affects who can live where and how where one lives affects non-residential opportunities, you can read up on burakumin (a disfavored heredity pseudo caste). Burakumin status still exposes one to highly non-trivial…

Key word is "ethnically and culturally homogeneous enough". And since we're talking about political policy here, domestic image is what matters here.

The actual numbers are not known because they aren't collected as part of the census, but the government estimates that upwards of 98% of the population is "ethnically" Japanese. Furthermore, many of the ethnic Koreans that you mention, as well as ethnic Chinese (the next biggest group, as I'm sure you already know), are culturally fairly assimilated, even if many are second class (non)citizens in the eyes of laws and much of society.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Below is a discussion of Burakumin and ethnic Koreans in Japan, which doesn't appear to be racially predicated, unless you're operating under an unusual definition of race. You've specifically claimed that "Japan" is "intensely racist". Are you going to claim that Koreans and/or Burakumin are racially distinct from Japanese?

Whatever semantic thread you're trying to cling to in order to keep this argument alive, I'm not interested.

No, please, it's not semantics, I'm directly refuting your claim. If burakumin and ethnic Koreans in Japan aren't racially distrinct from Japanese people, then discriminatory treatment of those people isn't racism. Your example doesn't support your claim. I'm inviting you to please explain how the example supports your claim. Maybe a good start would be providing an operational definition of "racist", as in "Japan is intensely racist".

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#188
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. There’s no need to take this “all the way to the top” (ie Federal). States can easily supplant the zoning powers of their local governments.

Won't happen. The Nimbys have all of the money and can influence the votes in extraordinary ways. Look at Seattle, they won't budge and we have an enormous amount of single family housing. Our mayor is also nearly entirely useless as well, and seemingly only cares about sports teams. The amount of propaganda that would be pushed out to crush any changes to zoning would be on historic levels.

To clarify, I meant “easily” in terms of fewer legal barriers. Political barriers is indeed a whole other issue.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Japan is intensely racist Would you care to provide some substance to this claim? You're tarring over a hundred million people with a very nasty brush.

Japan is intensely racist. My spouse lived there for a year. When she went about her business outside, small children who saw her would literally burst into tears screaming to their parents about gaijin.

That never happened to me, and I have been living there for 8 years now.

But I would agree that Japan is generally racist, as in most Japanese believe there are fundamental differences between people due to what they call race. I am not sure whether most Japanese would consider Korean a different race, but I would not be surprised either.

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