It is very sobering.
It is rational behavior to protect your investments and way of life in this manner. I think it's often short-term rationalization, and acting on bad information, but people are acting in a rational manner given their information and circumstances. Given that, it's probably good to address the base of that rationalization, rather than expect them to behave differently. I.e. give them more information that makes their prior behavior no longer the clearly beneficial choice for them, if such information exists. Play upon their sense of justice and ideals (such as ChuckMcM is). etc.
Nonsense. I don't live in San Fran, I do live in a city whose character has changed. I don't mind that people saw the cool inner city and wanted to share. I do mind that developer put up cheap high-rises with shit sound insulation, and then waged war on music venues, getting most of them shut down. I do mind that rents escalate massively year-on-year so that the hitherto broad range of inhabitants have steadily whittled down to a richer and richer (and frankly less interesting) rump. I do mind that many landlords would apparently rather see an empty shopfront than an interesting store that's no longer viable because apparently the thing to do is year-on-year 30% rent rises.
A.k.a they don't want to share.
That is what is happening with housing. Land might be finite, but housing stock is nowhere near its limits. Developers are more than willing to spend money to build more. It is not being built due to the opposition of those who already have a place to live.
[1]: In the United States.
Currently, areas often use zoning to try and limit growth, but that just means whoever get's to build new property get's to pocket the difference which opens the way to graft etc. IMO, the reasonable solution to that problem is simply to tax people who build new property a share of the existing infrastructure costs. (Note: Bonds seem like a way to side step this, but your still splitting the costs with everyone not just immigrants.)
Of course there is also NIMBY issues where people don't want change. But, that's a separate issue.
Most Bay Area cities also have rather large development fees.
The other side is that they moved into a neighborhood that has a certain number of houses in it, and parks. And they of course want it the same as what they paid for.
Yes, you will find groups of people who don't want new people moving in, or the town they founded spoiled with overbuilding. Bolinas comes to mind. These guys(Basically Hippies) built houses out here when no one realized just how beautiful a small community can be, and just how beautiful it is out there. They designed their little town with only a certain number of water hookups. They were upfront about their desires--they didn't want developement, nor other people. It essentiall stopped all building. As a young man who wanted to build out there, I thought it was unfair; but I can also see the wisdom in what they did. It's just a complex problem.
I am sympathetic to people who need housing. I actully belive in rent control. I just don't have a answer.
On a slightly different note, I belive we need to end homelessness yesterday. Every town should be required to have an area where people can camp. It doesn't need to be fancy. Just a place where a person can pitch a tent, without getting a ticket, or killed. There can be porta potties, and mobile wash stations. Cops can patrol the camp sites if needed. I don't think everyone will want to live in these primitive campsites. If that became a problem, you could require proof of previous residency.
Got off track--sorry.
But what if there had been no houses built here at all?
"Then I guess I'd live somewhere else"
(only half kidding) But that is the right answer right? Once they admit they have the flexibility of living anywhere they want then they should exercise that power if the city council votes in ways they don't like right? I get that it is a very complex patina of things that make up change, and when you have lived somewhere 20 years to have it change inexorably makes you feel powerless, but change is the constant.
My experience so far in talking with people is that they somehow want to keep things the way they were when they got there, and can't internalize that this merely put a pin in spectrum of change they experienced, rather than stopped it or changed it. In Sunnyvale, it used to be all orchards so most people are living on what was once productive farmland, and by moving there they helped destroy hundreds of jobs of people who worked at the Del Monte fruit packing plant (now gone). So they were the bad guys, and now we have this new set of people who are asking for a denser, less car centric, sort of existence with a walkable space and good public transit. So who are "we", the current residents, to judge "them" by what they want?
Everyone wants a living and thriving city. And what it takes to be that changes over the years, people lose sight of that though.
When someone goes back in time and convinces the dev not to make the house.
The real problem here is why this concentration of people and opportunity and economic activity is happening in the first place. I bet that if the government had not or would cut off the economic centers in the country from government spending and made a deliberate effort to inject money into slightly less economically active areas that only need an money injection, the housing problem in SF, NYC, Austin, etc. would essentially evaporate overnight.
Ultimately the real problem is a concentration of opportunities in a few economic centers, which is irrational in and of itself and only perversion of a manipulated, mutated, and distorted market due to the spike in oil prices that have dropped off and the Fed pumping money into the highest layers of society, which has led the little rat and roaches to squabble over the crumbs and droppings of the wealthy all around their hives and layers. You want to solve the housing problem far faster than being authoritarian dicks??? Vote for Bernie Sanders, or really anyone who will break up the grotesque concentration of wealth with a few and in a few places.
Second, no one is forcing homeowners to tear down their houses or do things they don't want to do with their private property. The debate is not about eminent domain. There are enough landowners willing to sell their piece of land to develop dense housing, enough developers willing to build it, and enough buyers or renters for the housing. The current nimbyism of trying to force your neighbors to conform to your little vision of what they should do or not do with their piece of land goes against the private property rights you advocate for. Let them build what they want to build on their property.
Where I think you're wrong is with respect to concentration of people/activity/opportunity. It is quite natural for such concentrations to occur and certainly far from irrational.
Does that make any sense? It's the pointless rambling of someone who wants to use the government to force you to stop using the government to force him to do something he doesn't want to do. It boils down to "the government should stop letting poor people vote". Pure nonsense.
> It's really a kind of liberal tyranny...
>I bet that if the government had not or would cut off the economic centers in the country from government spending
>...only perversion of a manipulated, mutated, and distorted market due to the spike in oil prices...
>...authoritarian dicks???
These are not the ramblings of one based in reality or the basis for a reasonable discussion.
Yeah..No. It's just rantings of someone steeped deeply in one extreme of a the political spectrum.