I’ve since learned that overly online keyboard warriors are the least important people to convince. The most important people are on your local city council or state legislature. Furthermore, instead of wasting time with hard cases or elected officials who are dead-set against your ideas, you’re much better off finding and working with people who are already interested in your principles. This often means giving up on your own city or state, at least for the time being, and pursuing a “succeed anywhere” strategy instead.
We're about to have a board vote eliminating single-family zoning (I expect us to win) and this rings extremely true about local politics. If you count "votes" in Facebook comments --- Facebook is where all our local politics happen --- you'd think this is the most contentious issue in the world. But in our last mayoral election, you'd draw the same conclusion about the race being tight, and in fact the progressive rinsed the moderate by a huge margin.
The same thing is very true of public meetings; the turnout for comment at those things is almost never representative of the area's median sentiment. "No" turns out for everything; "yes" rarely does.
I spend a lot of time in online arguments with opponents, on the theory that I'm not really writing to the person I'm arguing with but rather to everyone quietly reading comments. But it's almost certainly the case that the only conversations that have really mattered have been with electeds themselves.
> you’re much better off finding and working with people who are already interested in your principles
after five years in the trenches of local housing/urban policy in my city, this is my biggest takeaway. i don’t think i’ve ever even once changed someone’s mind who was a staunch NIMBY, even with a reputation as one of the most accessible and persuasive local policy advocates/writers. but I have been able to build coalitions of hundreds of people by finding people who were already mostly with me, and just shifting them from inactive->active.
there’s also a lot of power in the energy of building for the future. when we passed our big SFH elimination ordinance two years ago, we had a packed city council meeting that, numerically, had 50/50 of residents speaking for/against. but for the city council, watching a parade of retirees 65+ come up and say the same thing over and over again (“i’m not sure this is right for our city”) vs an equal sized but diverse group of people of all ages and life stages speak about all of their different housing needs and dreams for the future, the weight in the room was overwhelmingly in favor; the new zoning passed unanimously.
> watching a parade of retirees 65+ come up and say the same thing over and over again (“i’m not sure this is right for our city”) vs an equal sized but diverse group of people of all ages and life stages speak about all of their different housing needs and dreams for the future, the weight in the room was overwhelmingly in favor; the new zoning passed unanimously
"Yes you worked your whole life for that house that you carefully chose and maintained, but we want to send its value through the floor because we're more powerful".
This 'Georgian' tax scheme looks good in many ways. More below, but first, your question:
I don't know about other zones, but I live in a town that highly values open space and natural environment. This is a town ~35 miles away from a major city (top 10/20 in US), with no rail or mass transportation, or substantial business.
This is not the same as residential towns/zones more adjacent to the city, and I'm not making any arguments about those.
But for this town, and several near it the residents do a LOT to deserve the increase in land value. 1) Everyone in the town pays, and has paid for decades, substantially higher taxes to maintain the open rural character of the town, which includes the town buying parcels of town to keep open. 2) Everyone in the town foregoes substantial development opportunities available for subdividing land. 3) Everyone in the town pays higher taxes for high-density developments that do not happen to preserve wetland, environment, or usable open space. 4) Everyone in the town pays extra costs maintaining habitat rather than clear-cutting. 5) Because of the lack of development, the values have gone up LESS than other such towns in the region.
Yet everyone yells that this sort of town should be subject to the exact same massive high-density developments of other towns, utterly destroying the environment and town character, and yet providing nothing of value. A new lower-income-accessible house in such towns provides ZERO advantage to a supposed resident, who would now become absolutely dependent on a car and all the required expenses, being located a multi-hour commute from jobs in the city and no public transportation. Meanwhile, entire habitats of endangered species would be destroyed along with the character of the town.
It should be a different call on locales closer to the city (although I cannot speak for them). Particularly in zones near public transport such as rail lines, where people can get to/from work without the expense of an automobile, higher density should be encouraged, so their income can go towards building wealth in a property.
The Georgian idea looks quite good to me, as long as it respects the value of land conserved for natural habitat and open space. Such land should be completel different from a vacant lot with a torn-down building or parking lot — the "rentable" value of habitat or open land should be zero, since it cannot be built upon.
That said, it also looks like this 'Georgian' tax scheme would likely eliminate all parking near the city center very rapidly, or make it very expensive. This change should not be left to unintended consequences. Either provisions for parking should be made (force tall high-quantity parking garages?) or better yet, provisions for reducing/eliminating cars in the city with extensive public transport, low-/no-tax for bicycle parking? Probably different for each locale, but it needs to be planned for.
> Yet everyone yells that this sort of town should be subject to the exact same massive high-density developments of other towns, utterly destroying the environment and town character, and yet providing nothing of value.
Nothing of value to existing inhabitants perhaps, but massive value for those that don't have housing yet.
There are already inexpensive houses available at similar distances from the big city that would provide the same value to someone who doesn't yet have housing. Same commute distances, would require an automobile (and associated expenses), and the rest.
They stay inexpensive — because the people who lack housing do not want to buy them. Why? Because they are in the towns who do NOT spend all those costs and taxes to maintain a town with character, open lands, and protected natural environments.
No, you will not, without a fight, get to just destroy and take by fiat what others have spent decades and fortunes building.
The result will be just more of what is available in adjacent towns who did not spend to create a better environment, while destroying what value there is.
And then of course, if we do have people move into the less-well=-maintained areas, and try to improve them to produce more and better housing, the same "pro-housing" people complain of "gentrification".
It's not a glib response. People like you have made their "Garden cities" into a fortress, from where you drink champagne (or your favorite equivalent), while watching the plebs fight to the death outside, because they don't have a place to live. Maybe one day you'll realize you're one of the baddies and shed a tear.
I'm not talking about a garden city or walled fortress of any kind, and I said so above. I'm talking about a semi-rural town where people have valued nature and open space.
And no, destroying that to supposedly make housing for low-income people who are "fighting to the death for a place to live" will help zero of them. Because even if you gave the housing for near free, there are zero local jobs and zero local public transportation options to jobs, or even to groceries (nearest is 15min+ drive away). So, they'd need to jump up to meet the expenses of a two-car household, with car payments, insurance, maintenance, fuel, etc.. Plus spend hours commuting to work. Plus daycare, not cheap in the area. If you are that low-wage and have to support the automobiles and commuting, it literally costs more to get to work than you earn. You will have destroyed something of great value created over decades at vast personal expense, and helped no one.
The point is to put the housing where it makes sense. E.g., near jobs and public transport, and where it doesn't destroy open lands or literally endangered species habitat.
New York city could put plenty more housing right in Manhattan, but you don't see even the most radical pro-housing types suggesting they build over Central Park to do it.
> New York city could put plenty more housing right in Manhattan, but you don't see even the most radical pro-housing types suggesting they build over Central Park to do it.
Central Park acts as counterweight to the very dense urban area of Manhattan, which doesn't have that much place for building new. Your merry walled garden doesn't have that excuse.
In fact it does have exactly the same reason for being. Stop arguing non-facts, and microscopic context. There is no walled garden, or gated community of come imagined tycoons here (I'm sure there are elsewhere, but not where I'm talking about).
The town I'm talking about is well outside the city, but also one of the closer ones that actually has habitat, and in particular habitat for endangered species. It is EXACTLY this kind of preservation (and in fact, much larger zoning) that is needed to serve as a counterweight for high-density development.
I'm all for wherever it is already dense enough to basically exclude natural habitats, increase the density. But wherever it is sparse enough to have maintained natural habitat, decrease the density, not increase it.
You evidently have not noticed we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event, the previous one being the Cretaceous (~65 million years ago) asteroid impact catastrophe, and this one being entirely human-caused.
Simply encouraging blanket urban/suburban sprawl will only exacerbate that catastrophe. Which would be particularly tragic, since the need is entirely temporary, as birthrates are declining and the problem will be the opposite in a few decades as population declines (and already is in many countries), but the endangered species will already have been killed off never to return.
Personally, I paid substantially higher cost, of hard-earned money, and continue to pay taxes on a lot where 75% of it is absolutely unbuildable - I can't even cut a tree in that zone without permission. If I were greedy, the best move would be to advocate for ending zoning and environmental regs, and let me fill in the wetlands and build multiple units and subdivide. Doing that would easily yield enough money to retire wealthy in less than two years. But fortunately, there is a town where most people value the environment. It was actually hard to find, since there are many, actually MOST towns around prioritized development, because, money.
So, yes, just like Central Park, on a larger scale, this is one of the counterweights, and we pay more and incur large opportunity costs to maintain that counterweight.
Got it. You post simplistic opinions based on overdramatized notions of things that exist only in fiction, and consistently ignore facts and never actually engage with a real situation or reasoning that might change your opinion. Plus a quick check of your other comments shows similar uninformed yet strong opinions, failure to provide substantive answers to questions, and even admonishing others to "grow up". Wow.
Sorry, my mistake to reply above. Have the life you deserve, but here is not the place for it.
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
We're about to have a board vote eliminating single-family zoning (I expect us to win) and this rings extremely true about local politics. If you count "votes" in Facebook comments --- Facebook is where all our local politics happen --- you'd think this is the most contentious issue in the world. But in our last mayoral election, you'd draw the same conclusion about the race being tight, and in fact the progressive rinsed the moderate by a huge margin.
The same thing is very true of public meetings; the turnout for comment at those things is almost never representative of the area's median sentiment. "No" turns out for everything; "yes" rarely does.
I spend a lot of time in online arguments with opponents, on the theory that I'm not really writing to the person I'm arguing with but rather to everyone quietly reading comments. But it's almost certainly the case that the only conversations that have really mattered have been with electeds themselves.
jakintosh · · focus · HN ↗
after five years in the trenches of local housing/urban policy in my city, this is my biggest takeaway. i don’t think i’ve ever even once changed someone’s mind who was a staunch NIMBY, even with a reputation as one of the most accessible and persuasive local policy advocates/writers. but I have been able to build coalitions of hundreds of people by finding people who were already mostly with me, and just shifting them from inactive->active.
there’s also a lot of power in the energy of building for the future. when we passed our big SFH elimination ordinance two years ago, we had a packed city council meeting that, numerically, had 50/50 of residents speaking for/against. but for the city council, watching a parade of retirees 65+ come up and say the same thing over and over again (“i’m not sure this is right for our city”) vs an equal sized but diverse group of people of all ages and life stages speak about all of their different housing needs and dreams for the future, the weight in the room was overwhelmingly in favor; the new zoning passed unanimously.
philipallstar · · focus · HN ↗
"Yes you worked your whole life for that house that you carefully chose and maintained, but we want to send its value through the floor because we're more powerful".
ahtihn · · focus · HN ↗
What did you do to deserve the massive raise in value of land since you bought that house besides buying early?
toss1 · · focus · HN ↗
I don't know about other zones, but I live in a town that highly values open space and natural environment. This is a town ~35 miles away from a major city (top 10/20 in US), with no rail or mass transportation, or substantial business.
This is not the same as residential towns/zones more adjacent to the city, and I'm not making any arguments about those.
But for this town, and several near it the residents do a LOT to deserve the increase in land value. 1) Everyone in the town pays, and has paid for decades, substantially higher taxes to maintain the open rural character of the town, which includes the town buying parcels of town to keep open. 2) Everyone in the town foregoes substantial development opportunities available for subdividing land. 3) Everyone in the town pays higher taxes for high-density developments that do not happen to preserve wetland, environment, or usable open space. 4) Everyone in the town pays extra costs maintaining habitat rather than clear-cutting. 5) Because of the lack of development, the values have gone up LESS than other such towns in the region.
Yet everyone yells that this sort of town should be subject to the exact same massive high-density developments of other towns, utterly destroying the environment and town character, and yet providing nothing of value. A new lower-income-accessible house in such towns provides ZERO advantage to a supposed resident, who would now become absolutely dependent on a car and all the required expenses, being located a multi-hour commute from jobs in the city and no public transportation. Meanwhile, entire habitats of endangered species would be destroyed along with the character of the town.
It should be a different call on locales closer to the city (although I cannot speak for them). Particularly in zones near public transport such as rail lines, where people can get to/from work without the expense of an automobile, higher density should be encouraged, so their income can go towards building wealth in a property.
The Georgian idea looks quite good to me, as long as it respects the value of land conserved for natural habitat and open space. Such land should be completel different from a vacant lot with a torn-down building or parking lot — the "rentable" value of habitat or open land should be zero, since it cannot be built upon.
That said, it also looks like this 'Georgian' tax scheme would likely eliminate all parking near the city center very rapidly, or make it very expensive. This change should not be left to unintended consequences. Either provisions for parking should be made (force tall high-quantity parking garages?) or better yet, provisions for reducing/eliminating cars in the city with extensive public transport, low-/no-tax for bicycle parking? Probably different for each locale, but it needs to be planned for.
ragall · · focus · HN ↗
Nothing of value to existing inhabitants perhaps, but massive value for those that don't have housing yet.
toss1 · · focus · HN ↗
And no, it provides no new value.
There are already inexpensive houses available at similar distances from the big city that would provide the same value to someone who doesn't yet have housing. Same commute distances, would require an automobile (and associated expenses), and the rest.
They stay inexpensive — because the people who lack housing do not want to buy them. Why? Because they are in the towns who do NOT spend all those costs and taxes to maintain a town with character, open lands, and protected natural environments.
No, you will not, without a fight, get to just destroy and take by fiat what others have spent decades and fortunes building.
The result will be just more of what is available in adjacent towns who did not spend to create a better environment, while destroying what value there is.
And then of course, if we do have people move into the less-well=-maintained areas, and try to improve them to produce more and better housing, the same "pro-housing" people complain of "gentrification".
ragall · · focus · HN ↗
toss1 · · focus · HN ↗
I'm not talking about a garden city or walled fortress of any kind, and I said so above. I'm talking about a semi-rural town where people have valued nature and open space.
And no, destroying that to supposedly make housing for low-income people who are "fighting to the death for a place to live" will help zero of them. Because even if you gave the housing for near free, there are zero local jobs and zero local public transportation options to jobs, or even to groceries (nearest is 15min+ drive away). So, they'd need to jump up to meet the expenses of a two-car household, with car payments, insurance, maintenance, fuel, etc.. Plus spend hours commuting to work. Plus daycare, not cheap in the area. If you are that low-wage and have to support the automobiles and commuting, it literally costs more to get to work than you earn. You will have destroyed something of great value created over decades at vast personal expense, and helped no one.
The point is to put the housing where it makes sense. E.g., near jobs and public transport, and where it doesn't destroy open lands or literally endangered species habitat.
New York city could put plenty more housing right in Manhattan, but you don't see even the most radical pro-housing types suggesting they build over Central Park to do it.
ragall · · focus · HN ↗
Central Park acts as counterweight to the very dense urban area of Manhattan, which doesn't have that much place for building new. Your merry walled garden doesn't have that excuse.
toss1 · · focus · HN ↗
The town I'm talking about is well outside the city, but also one of the closer ones that actually has habitat, and in particular habitat for endangered species. It is EXACTLY this kind of preservation (and in fact, much larger zoning) that is needed to serve as a counterweight for high-density development.
I'm all for wherever it is already dense enough to basically exclude natural habitats, increase the density. But wherever it is sparse enough to have maintained natural habitat, decrease the density, not increase it.
You evidently have not noticed we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event, the previous one being the Cretaceous (~65 million years ago) asteroid impact catastrophe, and this one being entirely human-caused.
Simply encouraging blanket urban/suburban sprawl will only exacerbate that catastrophe. Which would be particularly tragic, since the need is entirely temporary, as birthrates are declining and the problem will be the opposite in a few decades as population declines (and already is in many countries), but the endangered species will already have been killed off never to return.
Personally, I paid substantially higher cost, of hard-earned money, and continue to pay taxes on a lot where 75% of it is absolutely unbuildable - I can't even cut a tree in that zone without permission. If I were greedy, the best move would be to advocate for ending zoning and environmental regs, and let me fill in the wetlands and build multiple units and subdivide. Doing that would easily yield enough money to retire wealthy in less than two years. But fortunately, there is a town where most people value the environment. It was actually hard to find, since there are many, actually MOST towns around prioritized development, because, money.
So, yes, just like Central Park, on a larger scale, this is one of the counterweights, and we pay more and incur large opportunity costs to maintain that counterweight.
ragall · · focus · HN ↗
toss1 · · focus · HN ↗
Sorry, my mistake to reply above. Have the life you deserve, but here is not the place for it.
ragall · · focus · HN ↗