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How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

nytimes.com

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Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#61

Post by pas »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #45
pas wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and? But living in your own house means you have your own roof, that can just as well needs maintenance, and you also can pick a bad contractor, and so on. There are trade-offs. And there are external costs. Having your own backyard means usually having and using a car, taking up space close to downtown (because fuck commute times, right?) for just a family (and taking up road capacity too). These are currently…

Its the difference between a £250,000k Job and a £10k one ogh and coordinating 50-70 different lease holder to pay their share. Even more extream if your looking at a listed building - which I did when I was looking at buying a ex alms house listed in Pevsner (one of only two buildings of note in my home town)

In my experience the paying the lease (or whatever the money due is formally called) is the least controversial part of it. You'll have more problems with the owners of the apartments. (So all the problems of the dreaded HOAs, exist for every building if it's owned by a group - which is quite usual in Europe.)

But these are very low-level problems, and they tend to sort themselves out pretty quickly (in ~5 years, let's say, if the building needs a renovation and the owners were not too keen on participating and saving for it beforehand).

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#62

Post by JumpCrisscross »

OedipusRex wrote: post #5

It's not so much that urban development kills "character", it's that current urban development methods are ugly. They have no class to them. The "not in my backyard" argument will always be brought about by people who's previously beautiful surroundings are replaced by brick rectangles with evenly spaced windows. The trick is to make urban areas attractive but not gentrified.

> current urban development methods are ugly

Ironically, part of the blame lies with zoning. Zoning restricts housing supply, thus increasing housing prices and making securing a political deal expensive. When you get one, you want to make the most of it. That means lots of expensive apartments.

"Expensive" means luxury. "Lots of" means space maximimisation. (Since the political process has constrained supply, you need not worry about someone competing on design - availability is almost enough by itself.)

This is illustrated in a recent New York Times article, where several architectural features of older buildings either directly violate modern zoning laws or would be done away given as a side effect of them: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-p...

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#63

Post by 1024core »

The only viable solution, keeping both sides happy, is to have a kickass public transportation system.

I live in SF. Some of the working class people I meet live as far away as Richmond, Vallejo and Gilroy. They spend hours commuting back and forth; but they have no choice. It kills the 'quality of life', but what can one do?

If, for example, it was possible to get from Richmond to SF in 15 minutes at any time of day or night, it would make a world of difference. The pressure to live in SF would be eased, knowing that any time you wanted to enjoy the city life, it was a quick 15 minute ride away.

Communities hate more development, because people don't want to disturb their little paradise, which they worked so hard to create. And these days, it is much easier for people to move; heck, many people live nomadic lives, spending months here, and months there.

Something else to think about: an influx of residents has second-order effects: more schools, more police, more fire, etc. etc. Who'll pay for that? The taxes will flow over decades, but these things need to be built right away!

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#64

Post by benlangmuir »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #54
p4wnc6 wrote: post #16

I feel that in many of these discussions, it's beneficial to see NIMBYism as a response to an incomplete insurance market, as described in [0]. This is not to say it is a complete or normative defense of NIMBYism, but rather that a lot of knee-jerk SJW sort of reaction is missing the point and failing to address, or even really attempt to understand, where NIMBYs are coming from. Part of me wonders if this could be s…

The problem is, it isn't an insurable problem if housing prices decrease when the new construction goes right . You would just put the insurance company on the opposing side of the development instead of the homeowners. The source of the problem is that people started buying homes as investments, overpaying for them because there was insufficient supply, and now that they've got a mortgage and they don't want to end…

Why do you think nominal housing prices will not increase with the new money? I can understand why housing prices would be sticky when going down, but I've never heard that they are sticky when going up.

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#65

Post by natrius »

1024core wrote: post #63

The only viable solution, keeping both sides happy, is to have a kickass public transportation system. I live in SF. Some of the working class people I meet live as far away as Richmond, Vallejo and Gilroy. They spend hours commuting back and forth; but they have no choice. It kills the 'quality of life', but what can one do? If, for example, it was possible to get from Richmond to SF in 15 minutes at any time of day…

Shipping people in from economically segregated exurbs is not a solution to a segregation problem. We could just repeal the laws that are hurting families with less wealth. The controversy on this issue should be a huge red flag: we've allowed the power of our governments to be wielded on behalf of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, and our political culture finds that acceptable. Fix the culture. Repeal the segregation laws.

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#66

Post by zackmorris »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #26

> The lost opportunities for development may theoretically reduce the output of the United States economy by as much as $1.5 trillion a year We should also do away with National Parks and Forests, which are nothing more than zoning laws at the Federal level. For that matter, state and local parks get in the way too. How much lost economic output are restrictions on real estate development in Golden Gate Park costing…

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I can't let this stand without replying. I live in Idaho and the protected areas are relatively pristine (aside from the inevitable gas stations and lodges needed to handle the high volume of sightseers) but the unprotected areas have been largely deforested, desertified and poisoned by extractive timber, grazing and mining practices. They don't tell you that 95% of forests in the lower 48 have been cut so they are no longer old growth, that the droughts are exacerbated by erosion due to loss of native vegetation, that the easily accessible minerals have already mostly been extracted and now we have multi-billion dollar superfund waste sites with mine tailings like arsenic and mercury that we'll be cleaning up for eons at taxpayer expense. The same story is repeated over and over again throughout the west.

For anyone reading this, be wary that the national backlash against public land is being driven by high federal deficits caused by overspending on the military and taxes on the ultra-wealthy that are at nearly an all-time historical low. Remember that we all own public land as individuals and can use it at any time for any purpose that is not destructive. The idea of freely giving away that land to private interests to be exploited for private gain is deeply unsustainable and I mourn for future generations that would miss out on what we enjoy today.

The great tragedy in all this is that I've found that the people in the most enlightened areas, the regions with the most natural resources and beauty left from the time of earliest creation, can take it all so easily for granted and come to take stances that don't ensure its protection. If anyone is on the fence about sustainability vs economic growth, I strongly urge you to do a full accounting with all externalities. You may find that the philosophies and principles that guide environmentally conscious individuals are rooted in logic and not some knee-jerk hysteria like what is sometimes portrayed by infotainment news. I understand that every community is different, but like most things in our society we can rely on a majority sentiment that only thinks one move ahead, not 10 or 20 or 30 like we do. We can’t go wrong by meditating on such important decisions and drawing our own conclusions, which I’m confident will have little alignment with the propaganda of the day.

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#67

Post by stale2002 »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #42
stale2002 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are thinking about things in exactly the wrong way. For every 1 story increase in building height in a San Francisco apartment complex, there is 10 less houses that have to be build in Suburbia. 10 parcels of land that can now be converted to national parks, and public spaces. People need a place to live whether you like it or not. We can either make room for them in the cities, by increasing density and building…

But not everyone wants to live in an apartment/flat there are serious downsides to lease hold property's. A co worker was on the residents committee for a block of flats (london UK) that had to have the roof replaced not cheap and the original contrcator did it wrong and they had to sue them and have it redone.

Thats fine, but we are already in a position where 10s of millions of people would rather live in the city, but are unable to due to how expensive it is. YOU don't have to move to the city, but if we build more houses in the city, then OTHERS will be able to.

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#68

Post by ars »

wallflower wrote: post #32
ars wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe people go to the park to have solitude with nature and go home to interact with people [on the street by the house]. In the US people go to the park to interact with people, and go home to have solitude [hopefully with nature in their backyard, but even if not they want a quiet apartment without lots of people near them, or at least the illusion of it]. Some people prefer the US way, some the European way.…

The European way, in many ways, was a consequence of geography and, to a lesser degree, climate. The US is a car-centric culture that is fueled by (relatively) cheap gasoline (energy prices). Take for instance shopping malls. Shopping malls in Asia (usually in urban centers) build up vertically while in the United States they are build out horizontally with acres and acres of parking spaces. Some of the best US citie…

> Some of the best US cities have European-like features

Careful with calling it "best". Not everyone likes that kind of thing in a city.

I don't. I hate those types of cities, I feel very stressed and oppressed ("squished" if you get what I mean) when I go to cities designed in that way. I can handle it for a visit, but I would never want to live there.

Different people like different things, that's why we have a variety of cities in the US, you can live in a place that matches what you like. But don't call it "best" just because it happens to be what you like.

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#69

Post by AnthonyMouse »

benlangmuir wrote: post #64
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, it isn't an insurable problem if housing prices decrease when the new construction goes right . You would just put the insurance company on the opposing side of the development instead of the homeowners. The source of the problem is that people started buying homes as investments, overpaying for them because there was insufficient supply, and now that they've got a mortgage and they don't want to end…

Why do you think nominal housing prices will not increase with the new money? I can understand why housing prices would be sticky when going down, but I've never heard that they are sticky when going up.

Increasing the housing supply would tend to cause nominal housing prices to decrease. Increasing the money supply would tend to cause nominal housing prices to increase. Do them both at the same time and they cancel.

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#70

Post by benlangmuir »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #69
benlangmuir wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think nominal housing prices will not increase with the new money? I can understand why housing prices would be sticky when going down, but I've never heard that they are sticky when going up.

Increasing the housing supply would tend to cause nominal housing prices to decrease. Increasing the money supply would tend to cause nominal housing prices to increase. Do them both at the same time and they cancel.

Ah, reading comprehension failure on my part. Wouldn't the effects of the inflation be out of proportion with the housing supply increase, though? Printing money will affect many prices, but the housing supply only affects the local housing market.
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