201–210 of 1001 posts
In principle, I hate this. Cities should be able to plan their own growth. In practice, coming from CA, I am 100% onboard. It's a mess of red tape and bullshit lawsuits.
They should, but they have very few incentives to do a great job, as they're funded either way.
The "local control" freaks have misapprehended the entire situation. The state of California is not analogous to the federal system of the United States. Cities have no powers other than those granted by the state, no natural right to exist, and continue to exist only at the sufferance of the state legislature. The legislature can disincorporate any city with a simple majority. Cities like Santa Monica should be reli…
And to some degree, the citizens have been right, when fighting individual projects. Delay a project long enough, and the financial incentive to build can be eliminated, so the developer moves on. Frivolous, baseless lawsuits are a great way to do that. But when it comes to fighting the State, there is no financial incentive to disappear and make the State stop fighting. There is only the law.
I don't live in the area but I like the idea that the codes are updated to match the population. I hope there are some provisions for "access to sunlight" as the buildings grow -- something like Japan's Nisshoken policies... or I'd like to hear how that isn't a good idea for city planning.
This seems like a way to reduce homelessness and fix the housing market in one fell swoop.
> reduce homelessness Is the homeless problem due to the cost of housing? Or is it moreso due to fentanyl?
> Over the course of the book, the researchers illustrate how absolute rent levels and rental vacancy rates are associated with regional rates of homelessness. Many other common explanations—drug use, mental illness, poverty, or local political context—fail to account for regional variation.
Wow that's great news! The level of bureaucratic creep that has been imposed on property owners is actually unbelievable to me. I obviously understand some regulations (you can't built a chemical processing plant in a residential neighborhood, obviously), but cities have creeped themselves into all-powerful overseers. Most cities now have the power to tell you what kind of house you can build, how you can paint it, h…
> you can't built a chemical processing plant in a residential neighborhood, obviously Actually we have oil derricks in the middle of residential neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
Source: Grew up in Texas surrounded by mostly harmless pump jacks and then moved to Louisiana in Cancer Alley.
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> how you can landscape it, what kinds of cars you can keep in your own driveway These two at least make some sense. The former, landscaping restrictions, can be used to prevent people from creating groundwater issues or flood risks, and the latter... no one wants a neighbor in a residential zone keeping broken-down trash cars out in the open. Some things have to be regulated even in a relatively free society because…
How would a broken-down car on a driveway ruin everyone else's life? Even so, today's trash car that does not look posh can be a tomorrow's restored historical car that does.
People have limits. While some people push those limits too far (in either direction), there are times when those limits are realistic.
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Again this is where we are getting into what it means to own something. Do I own the property or not? If my neighbors want to get together and buy my house from me because they want to do something with it, then they are by all means allowed to do so.
Nobody in the US, and indeed most of the world, "owns" their property. Try not paying your property taxes, and see where that gets you. You lease the right to usus, mostly fructus, and to some extent abusus from the state.
edit: I'll happily take any downvoters on a 10 year long bet that California will continue to see a net outflow of the wealthy and continual growth in crime absent a flip back, however temporarily, to Republican rule at the state level. Easy bet.
So in theory californians could now build walkable/cyclable european-style cities?
US planning is really abysmal and detrimental to quality of life, and it's nearly impossible to get people to even realize it because of car brain.
I'm hopeful that we can adopt eco-districts in some area and start to turn this around, but it will be a 50-100 year project to correct US planning.