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Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

Similarly, you might have thought you were getting clean air...

You may not have legal authority over everything that happens, but there's more to the land you purchase, than the dirt within the lines.

Otherwise, why does anyone pay extra for a house near a school, or in a happening city? They didn't buy the school or the city, after all.

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> They didn't buy the school or the city, after all.

No, but they didn't buy the right to control the school or the city either. And if they thought they did, they were wrong and had an unrealistic sense of entitlement.

"Sense of entitlement" comments like this show that what this debate really boils down to is control, with neither the "we have had control and don't want to give it up just because you want change" side nor the "we want to take some of the control" side coming off looking all that great. I happily wash my hands of all of it.

In all fairness, the comment he was responding to literally equated a nice view to breathable air.

When a small group of people have most of the control, and they are using it in a way that hurts the majority of people, asking for a more level playing field doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.

So who does? People who don't live in the city, or attend the school?

They at least have a stake, as evidenced by ballot items pertaining to the city and their school. Or do you believe that's wrong?

Exactly: they have a stake. That shouldn't give them the right to make unilateral "no" decisions for everyone else, but that's basically what we have in SF.

I don't live in SF but it sounded like the community was making unilateral "no" decisions, which is what happens when all the stakeholders get together and agree. To which, the system is working exactly how it was designed. Does one person actually have the power to make unilateral decisions in SF?

More or less. Only a small minority of the community needs to complain, and that can delay or completely scuttle projects. The people who do complain usually do so loudly and obnoxiously, which really gets the gov't's attention for some reason.

Yes, and if the city decides to close the school, or change traffic routing, saying "but I bought a house because of it!" does not entitle you to veto those decisions.

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