Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by kofejnik | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

kofejnik

what's so wrong with NIMBYism?

View on HN

Because it hurts people - and mostly those who are poorer or middle class:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/10/why-c...

it hurts some people (those who want to live in SF), but it helps other people (those who already live there), pretty much like any other resource with finite availability

Yes, a bunch of rich people get richer, and the poor get poorer because they can't access jobs in one of the most productive, wealthy parts of the country.

All because we don't allow the market to function properly.

Seems like a failure to me. Here's Ed Glaeser:

"Reforming local land use controls is one of those rare areas in which the libertarian and the progressive agree. The current system restricts the freedom of the property owner, and also makes life harder for poorer Americans. The politics of zoning reform may be hard, but our land use regulations are badly in need of rethinking."

https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use-regula...

To the contrary, this is market functioning properly - people have something which they are reluctant to share with other people, so they don't. Do you suggest to force them? This will not be a "proper functioning market", you know. Next, somebody will say that having rich people is bad altogether so let's just share money equally.

> so they don't

That would be the case if we were talking about their own property, but they're using rules and regulations to force other people to not do what they want with their property.

In a healthy market, yeah, some people would not sell out and change would be gradual as the city built up incrementally. That's how things should be, but we do not allow that.

You mean they are doing that via democratically elected political representation? The horror.

How dare people elect politicians to represent their own interests, rather than the interests of the allegedly marginalized.

So what? Doesn't mean we aren't allowed to criticize them representing their "own interest"/rent seeking.

Sure, you can criticize and they can ignore it. Worry about making your own city nice, not theirs. That's the whole point of having localized governments.

Zoning - in some places - got a start because people didn't want - to be blunt about it - "the wrong colored people" in their neighborhoods.

Absolute majority rule has some serious downsides.

They said that when they chased out Willie Mayes and during the Chinese Laundry cases.

Well, you could argue it is being selfish, i.e immoral.

I ate a burger for lunch, was it selfish and immoral? I'm pretty sure some other guy would've liked that burger, too

Let's say you ate two burgers, when you could have easily gotten by with just one. Or even worse, you threw the 2nd burger in trash. You only took it just in case. The guy behind you was left with none.

No. It's more like you took a burger that someone else owned and prevented him from doing what he wants with it. It is an encroachment on the rights of others.

It's more like you prevented a lactose-intolerant person from drinking a bunch of milk because you're both in the same unventilated room and you can't leave or open a window and you really don't want to smell their farts. "NIMBY"

Dijkstra may have been right about the lack of rigour to reasoning-by-analogy, but damn, it is entertaining.

Cheers, I was pretty proud of that one.

The thing is I see both sides: I am in favor of private property, and I don't like the idea of e.g. home owners' associations that try to limit what color you can paint your own house. But I also grew up in San Francisco, and I really do not think this city will be more livable with ~100,000 or more people trying to live here.

But then how do we decide who does get to live here? And who gets to build what?

It's not easy, but standing around yelling "You NIMBY!" at your neighbors isn't productive.

My mother lives in a rent-controller home in SF. In effect, her landlord is donating ~$1500 to her every month (comparing what she pays with what a new tenant could expect to pay.) On the same token, does ownership of a building really confer on you the right to make as much money as you can, or are you just the temporary steward of a physical artifact the primary purpose of which is to provide a good life for its residents and the neighborhood? What is the purpose of real estate? What is the purpose of a city?

Yes, actually. I'm pretty sure the cow would have liked to keep that burger.

(also, the ecological "footprint" of that burger compared to a salad or veggie-burger or something blah blah yadda-yadda...)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com