Why California liberals turn into raging conservatives over housing

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Why-California-liberals-are-so-conservative-about-16432660.php

by jseliger • 5 years ago

15 15 5 years ago

sfchronicle.com

crmrc114• 5 years ago

Paywalled, if someone could be so kind as to post a readable link.

mixmastamyk• 5 years ago

Reader view cut the crap for me.

baron816• 5 years ago

Just because California is a blue state, doesn't mean it's uniformly blue. Trump received more votes from California than any other state (6 million vs 5.89 million in Texas [1]). There are a lot of pockets of very staunch conservatives in California.

But, yeah, it still tends to be the liberals who are the worst NIMBYs. That's just a result of them believing markets are unable to solve the problem.

https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2020pres...

co2benzoate• 5 years ago

California's population is 36% larger than Texas' population but only had 1.8% more votes for Trump. In contrast, California had 111% more votes for Biden.

elefanten2• 5 years ago

There’s been such a rapid and massive movement towards YIMBYism and pro-housing in people’s performative politics (as in, what they yell loudly about on social and digital media) that I’ve been left wondering what has influenced that trend.

It doesn’t seem to be genuine interest in solving the problem, because I’ve never once seen answers to even the most obvious concerns with one-track “build more housing in the already-densest areas with no plan to expand the already-overstressed infrastructure” advocacies that are seemingly so popular.

Walking through San Francisco is already an exercise in avoiding a never-ending canvas of human shit stains (some dog shit, but mostly human shit). Every public transit system underserves the transit needs and every terminal is overrun with discarded humans.

But yes let’s cram in a shitload more housing and just wave our hands about all the remaining infrastructure, social work, culture change and community-building that would actually make the city a better place.

m-ee4• 5 years ago

I don't really understand this take. I've never met anyone that was vociferously pro housing and wasn't also pro bike/public transit. Also if we need to build more housing, which I think we take as a given, building in the denser areas is going to strain infrastructure less than endlessly expanding the suburbs is it not?

elefanten2• 5 years ago

This assumes you can pass all the things you want, which empirically hasn’t worked out so well. Riling people up to demand 1 policy is different than getting 5-6 policies that have to all work together the right way to achieve your change.

In practical terms, a suburb HAS to be build with new infra — nobody will move into a community without roads and plumbing.

Conversely, it’s pretty easy to clear legal obstacles to various developments. You don’t have to spend, plan, organize anything to achieve that. But adding lanes, adding terminals, fixing roads, upgrading transit systems, connecting deeply-struggling with services that exist for them… all these things take human effort and non-trivial resources.

If we don’t have a political climate where you can pass your comprehensive raft of urban reform (each of which will have a variety of entrenched interests fighting back), passing JUST housing reform to open the floodgates to developers seems like far less of an obviously-good idea. It seems like it will make things net worse.

thdxr• 5 years ago

Once you have to pay a price for your politics then you see what people really believe

ajay-b• 5 years ago

The article begins by assuming liberal goals are progress. Perhaps it should begin with an unbiased view of California.

Why California liberals turn into raging conservatives over housing

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