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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

#331

Post by BrenBarn »

The tear-down/build-up dichotomy sidesteps the fact that the tear-down side consists of wealthy oligarchs tearing down the government, when what we need is the opposite. There are many entrenched interests that support the status quo, and politicians are only one such group. The article alludes to this with the thing about the firefighters union, but then seems to go right on with the idea of persuading the elected officials, rather than recognizing a need to dismantle the apparatus of "highly engaged stakeholders" who feed into politics. There is a lot that needs to be torn down.

That said, I agree that shifting politicians against the status quo is part of the solution. I do get a sense that things are moving in that direction. At least now it's becoming politically difficult in CA to not at least make some gestures towards supporting housing affordability. And every failure to back those gestures up with action leads to increasing pressure. The balance hasn't shifted yet but it's teetering more than it has for a while.

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

#332

Post by toast0 »

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.

I believe Section 8 also comes with regular inspections. Some locales do regular inspections anyway, but many don't.

Some Section 8 tenants have complex interactions with their neighbors and their environment, and I think eviction of Section 8 tenants is harder too.

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

#333

Post by BrenBarn »

Aloisius wrote: post #177
TimorousBestie wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You always renegotiate at market rates. As long as RealPage and friends exist, market rates are whatever they say they are. There’s no free market in real estate.

There are now eight antitrust lawsuits against them by seven states + the DOJ. The DOJ and some states have started adding major landlords to their suits as well (since it is a cartel). Sadly, courts move slowly so it will probably be years before a decision.

It doesn't matter how many suits are pending, it matters how many win and how stiff the penalties are.

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

#334

Post by BrenBarn »

steveBK123 wrote: post #221
seryoiupfurds wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do people abuse the process? Sure, some do. They get away with it at most once, because...there's a record of it all in housing court and eviction proceedings are pretty much a deathblow with any landlord doing their homework. The problem is that for large corporate landlords this is a statistical risk that can be priced in and accounted for across hundreds of units. For small mom-and-pop landlords renting out thei…

It's an interesting problem I'm not sure what the solution is. Being a small-time landlord is unreasonably risky due to tenant friendly laws and backed up courts. Similarly, I've found renting from small-time landlords to be a worse experience. They tend to do things that a large corporation would eventually face lawsuits over - discrimination, demanding more money up front, keeping deposits, poor upkeep of units, et…

> It's an interesting problem I'm not sure what the solution is.

The solution is to make the rules different for small landlords.

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

#336

Post by BrtByte »

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…

Removing barriers is necessary, but not always sufficient

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

#337

Post by BrtByte »

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…

Change won't come from inside a district that's already comfortable... It has to come from broader coalitions that push past local veto points.

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

#338

Post by nielsbot »

Listened to an interview on The Majority Report about "The Abundance Agenda" with Paul Glastris who argues that YIMBYism angers the locals and is of limited effectiveness compared to, say, re-zoning commercial districts which leads to the greatest number of housing units built. There's a lot more in the interview... Interesting and relevant to this chat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOFcn03k22o

(Sam Seder, host of the Majority Report, went mildly viral for his recent Jubilee appearance)

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

#339

Post by cryptonector »

PaulHoule wrote: post #232
eddythompson80 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem to be the attitude when the lunatic fringe on the Republican side occupy social media. I understand why politicians (both democrats and republicans) don't want to denounce any such fringe groups that are cheering for them. Seems to work better for republicans than democrats though

It does. Why that is is a story that has many different parts. One of them is that there really is an infrastructure to communicate what the Republican party stands for that which is connected to the party on an everyday basis. The absence of the Democratic party that potential supporters are complaining about right now is structural. Baudrillard might say "The Democratic Party doesn't exist" Secondly the left has to…

The Republican party has a grassroots vs. establishment dynamic going on. The Democratic party has no such thing. In the Democratic party the elders decide who's going to run in the primaries and they body out any challengers -- "wait your turn" they get told, and then they do. I'm not talking about presidential elections or even congressional ones. I'm talking about local politics. If you're an outside and you want to run for office you have a much better chance on the R side than the D side.

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

#340

Post by mschuster91 »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #170
PaulHoule wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who owns a second house on a farm that has two rental units in it, I’m skeptical of attempts to expand ‘tenant rights’ in New York. I had a tenant who decided that he did not have to pay the rent, it took months of trying to reason with him, we hired a lawyer and went through the process which took several months, in the end the tenant stayed on a few months past what would have been the eviction date but…

I’ve also seen this happen in NYS. Tenants do the craziest shit (selling showers to crackheads and discovering a near thousand dollar water bill was one of the tamer tales), fight tooth and nail to stay, and leave the place uninhabitable when they finally are forced to go. Unfortunately the local mom and pop landlords get wrecked by this while only the big corporate landlords have the resources and scale to weather t…

The key thing would be the government finally go and improve the situation around mental health care accessibility and a proper social safety net.

People don't fall for drugs on their own - the utter, utter majority fall for drugs to self-medicate for whatever crisis they're facing. Be it perspectivelessness, losing a family member or one's job - across the Western world, governments have completely given up supporting people who hit a rough patch in life, and now it's a situation that is very, very hard to resolve.

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