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Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

inpractice.yimbyaction.org

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Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#281

Post by jakelazaroff »

rayiner wrote: post #269
jakelazaroff wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if you cherry pick data you get different results. Prop 16 was rejected by around 57% of the voters — hardly overwhelming, but there’s a reason that you’re citing a 74% figure when it supports your argument, vaguely gesturing at an election result when it’s more even and outright ignoring the poll where a majority of people explicitly say they support affirmative action for racial minorities .

People support the nice sounding abstract phrase until you tell them specifically what you mean by it. And I didn’t cherry pick anything. I quoted the portions of the article that said support depends on context, and then the paragraph discussing the college context and the employment context. The article itself happens to specify a percentage in text for one but not the other. Then I mentioned Prop 16 as a concrete…

Further down in the article, it also cites a poll in which over 60% of people say racial and ethnic diversity is either extremely or somewhat important. People have a lot of conflicting opinions! The idea that the data here supports any sort of “overwhelming” consensus is just straight up not true.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#282

Post by uses »

legitster wrote: post #46

I've grown a little bit more skeptical of what can realistically be achieved by the passive nature of YIMBY-ism. In Portland, they passed some radical new zoning laws a few years ago that allowed anyone, anywhere the ability to zone ADUs on their property. And the cost to get permits is almost nothing. I have lots of friends and family in the area with property. But not a single one has added an ADU. It seems like it…

I don't understand why you brought up ADUs... nobody thinks ADUs are the solution to the decade+ long housing crisis. Blue states need massive state-wide zoning reform that overrides local control.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#283

Post by ty6853 »

m463 wrote: post #277
PaulHoule wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around the time we bought our place we had some spare cash and thought about getting another house. I'd seen the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book which had the advice that you should buy a rental property only it was wildly cashflow positive after the mortgage. That's not realistic in most cases but we saw one rental property which looked crazy profitable that was full of Section 8 tenants. We passed on it because it was real…

I thought "section 8" tenants had a guaranteed rent. But yeah, probably would still be a job.

In section 8 a few bad tenants strip everything of value to hawk for drugs. Sure the rent is paid but now the city is up your ass for code violations when the very people that destroyed the place complain it isn't habitable. Which you must now repair so it can be stolen again.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#284

Post by brailsafe »

avidiax wrote: post #9

I think the author has it quite backwards, at least as it comes to housing. Politicians are beholden to the members of their district, not would-be members. Sure, more affordable housing would benefit many people, but it wouldn't benefit the members of the district, particularly the wealthy and powerful, since more affordable housing is very nearly equivalent to real estate values decreasing (at the very least, as pe…

This is basically what owners and politicians think and act on, but ignores the fact that in many cases renters are already the people that make up their district, because the gulf between owning and renting is so vast, and nearly every owner subsidizes their mortgage or property taxes by renting their basement or something.

In my neighborhood, I'm quite sure that the overwhelming majority of the population are either renters and owner's kids. The minority have control over their shelter, many of those aren't even shy about asking for cash to dodge taxes while collecting pensions and old age security, and it's disgusting. Renters make up a significant enough voting segment, but no matter what we're voting for people who actively try to screw us in order to create more wealth for the wealthy.

It's more common than not in my social circle that anyone under the age of 40 is renting from an individual who owns a house on the comically, needlessly large plots that make up the neighborhood.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#285

Post by dmitrygr »

orange_joe wrote: post #191
vondur wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what if it were you in that position? What if your income was reduced and now the Government increases the property tax so you can no longer afford to pay for it? And let's add in the Government has a large tax on capital gains, which will kick in if you sell that property, and now you can't afford a new property somewhere else?

1. I’m being descriptive not prescriptive. property taxes being used to drive urbanization and development is a standard urban planning practice and was used to be used in LA during they heyday of its growth. 2. Your issue with what I said seems very dependent on something you chose to “add in” — Why am I being asked to defend something I never said?

> is a standard urban planning practice and was used to be used in LA during they heyday of its growth

Do you thus imply that ANY part of LA at all is a sane model for anything at all?

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#286

Post by rfwhyte »

"Abundance" is a ludicrous pipe-dream.

With the ways our societies are currently structured, any additional productivity / surpluses / GDP that's created via automation, AI, or whatever the "Next big thing" is, will just be gobbled up by the rich to pay for vacation mansions and mega yachts.

Across pretty much every industrializing / industrialized / post-industrialized country on earth income inequality is rising, and at an accelerating pace.

Technology is not going to save the common person, it's only going to be used a a tool to further control and exploit us, and a disproportionate share of whatever value it creates is going to go to the wealthy elites as it already does.

The "Abundance" that gets talked about in techno-utopian contexts will be an "Abundance" reserved only for the rich, and unless we the people can somehow find a way to break the iron-grip of power the wealthy elites have over our societies, we won't get to share in the windfall, we'll just get to watch from the sidelines in our broken down, bankrupt communities as the rich broadcast their "Amazing" consumerist lives 24/7 via social media or whatever.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#287

Post by rayiner »

wwweston wrote: post #260
rayiner wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet "tangled up in social issues" remains a popular misconception. Why? It’s not a “misconception.” Democrats choose to spend their political capital changing the status quo on social issues. For example, Americans overwhelmingly oppose affirmative action: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans... Affirmative action was banned in California in 1996. Which party tried to repeal the ban in 2020?…

Composition fallacy much? I was a CA voter in 2020. The focus I saw from candidates and citizens alike were things like democracy, rule of law, housing costs/policy, and police reform. Prop 16 was a footnote , not a focus, which is probably one of the reasons it lost (alongside the fact that its language made it difficult to tell if it was allowing for civil protections or tearing them down). And democratic domestic…

Voters don’t take campaign platforms at face value, they view them through their experience. People in California aren’t experiencing Democrats actually fixing housing. But they are seeing large employers like Google post stuff like: “Google is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.” (Google deleted that language from its website recently enough that it still shows up in the Google search results blurb.) And Democrat politicians are supportive of such efforts.

At the end of the day, the Biden administration built way more DEI departments than EV chargers. And Democrats own that.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#288

Post by dmitrygr »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #231
baggy_trough wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a general fear of being a landlord. Tenants have a lot of legal rights, and the risk of inviting someone onto your property who could start squatting or doing drugs and not being able to evict them is beyond the pale for most families. Yes, there's no chance I'm going to rent an ADU under these incredibly tenant-biased regulations as in California. I have to be able to evict people at the end of their lease…

I rent an ADU in California, and many of the Tennant rights are waived for it if the primary property is owner occupied, aside from some cities like oakland. I would not want to rent a separate property in CA as an individual, especially as counties start banning criminal background checks.

> many of the Tennant rights are waived for it if the primary property is owner occupied, aside from some cities like oakland

And this can change overnight... CA cities have made some pretty drastic changes quite suddenly in the past. Not worth it. Eg: https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2025/01/29/mountain-view-stren...

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#289

Post by ty6853 »

legitster wrote: post #254
s1artibartfast wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oakland was looking at 800k for half size shipping containers retrofitted into single room studios with windows.

Shipping containers are a huge red flag that a project is a gimmick. People have this mistaken idea that there are a ton of shipping containers that need to be recycled (there was a brief period in the mid aughts where this may have been true). But a used shipping container is neither cheap nor a great material to build a home from.

Last I checked you could get a 20 ft container for what, 6 grand? That's 160 sq ft. And you need a foundation. And to frame inside for insulation. If you go Amish style without mains power you could finish out a kacynziski sized studio for under 20k.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#290

Post by brailsafe »

firstplacelast wrote: post #114
avidiax wrote: post #9

I think the author has it quite backwards, at least as it comes to housing. Politicians are beholden to the members of their district, not would-be members. Sure, more affordable housing would benefit many people, but it wouldn't benefit the members of the district, particularly the wealthy and powerful, since more affordable housing is very nearly equivalent to real estate values decreasing (at the very least, as pe…

Tie minimum wage to the cost of housing on a per city or per zip code basis. When the middle class and wealthy are negatively impacted by their restaurants, grocery stores, etc becoming expensive (or shutting down) due to labor costs then they will relent. "I hate more housing, but I love to eat affordably." Connect labor prices to the cost of assets in some meaningful way. I personally think people should not work f…

> people should not work for a wage less than they need to buy the crappiest home in their town which would negate this need, but the lower-classes haven't developed enough self-esteem or entitlement for that.

and do what to prevent themselves from going homeless in the meantime?

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