The problem is NIMBY bullshit in the purest sense. People will use every excuse in the book to prevent new housing in their neighborhood. While a fair amount of the time environmental policies are abused to block development, zoning laws are also abused, parking/ land use legislation, hell I've seen houses blocked because they increase the shade in a park by 2% for half an hour during the evening.
None of this is "environmentalism", its rich people standing on a high hill screwing over everyone else beneath them.
Motivated Reasoning is a hell of a thing!
People with rent control are under the same incentives. Have a $2000 rent controlled apartment that would rent for $4000? If something changes in your neighborhood the makes you want to move, you don't really have that option. So you fight really hard against changes.
The longer Prop 13 is around the worse it gets and California has just passed statewide rent control. Things will continue to get worse on this front and I don't see a way for California society to change the situation.
One doesn't need to live in California long before they see a community leaflet opposing a local housing development. These developments, on the surface, all look like great ideas. The stated reasons to oppose the permit all seem thin: Accusing the developer of greed, or claiming that traffic will get worse. Homes closer to work and a local discount store do increase traffic on surrounding streets but decrease cross-town traffic in the wider area. They might even encourage people to walk!
They did just change the situation. They made it worse!
California property tax mostly goes to the state and it funds schools by giving money back to the local districts (except about 60 really rich ones that opted out!) based on the number of student days/school. I'm not really sure, but I think that prop 13 passed after the state started taking property tax money. That would make sense as people like to have control of how there taxes are spent.
If you oppose such developments, then the higher value of your home _is your fault_.
Reminds me of what I've heard about working in the academic world: Since people often have a job for life, workplace conflict can't be resolved as everywhere else, where someone switches job or gets fired. Instead people make each other's life hell forever.
Just a story I've heard, I have no personal experience. But I've heard it several times.
Yes, people talking self serving nonsense are lying. But they're primarily lying to themselves!!!
Essential book: https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyda...
TED talk version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V84_F1QWdeU
When we're talking this kind of phenomena, we certainly using language at a very high level of abstraction. But the "color" of how one expresses one's self matters even more. What "primary" means here is key, for example.
People talking self-serving nonsense often believe what they're saying, maybe more than someone taking a rational position ('cause rationality involves some self doubt).
The main question, in a sense is "are these people 'out to get us'?". On the one hand, one can give the defense, "they aren't consciously trying to put their interests ahead of yours and aren't trying to deceive you" but there's the other factor that this sort of strategy can be the very best strategy for people putting their interests ahead of you and /or deceiving you, which makes them your most effective enemies.
I mean, if you dig deep down, the terrible people "are victims too". Does that mean you shouldn't blame them? Well, the terrible people need to be defeated and punished appropriately, in a judgmental way, to prevent them from doing the stuff we don't like and to fill those who might consider it with fear (still non-judgmentally).
Almost. There needs to be a "consciously" before each "trying".
Because they are trying to deceive you, but the conscious part of their (or, just as much, our) mind doesn't know it.
It helps to think of the brain as dozens of more or less independent units, most of which are unconscious.
The common metaphor is:
If you think of the brain as something like the White House, the conscious part ("me") assumes it is the President. In reality it is the Press Secretary, tasked with coming up with arguments for why what the real decision makers decided is a great idea.
Vehicle miles driven doesn't make as big of a difference as one might expect. A paper[0] I saw linked on reddit had an interesting graph: https://imgur.com/a/n7u8fGH
In this paper, what carbon emissions you lose by not driving you gain from building emissions. Maybe because the study area was New York, with more fuel oil-heated buildings? Presumably, decarbonized heating and electricity generation would make a difference, but New York state already is pretty good by that metric: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/newyork/ (Though nowhere near carbon neutral, or carbon negative, as would be required for keeping global warming to 2C)
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0: Andrews, C. J. (2008). Greenhouse gas emissions along the rural-urban gradient. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640560802423780 If you don't want to buy the PDF, then visit the crow site.
What's surprising is that at the other end of the spectrum, in rural (not sub-urban) areas, other factors (forests, etc.) combine to cause lower per-capita emissions than suburbs (and in some cases, negative per-capita emissions because of sequestration).
Basically, from a carbon-emissions perspective, post-war suburbs are unsurprisingly worst, rural areas get some help from sequestration in forests (this fact being the contribution of the paper), and dense urban environments are the least-emitting.
So if you move into the city instead of commuting, you might be using the same commercial buildings a before, but their emissions are suddenly attributed to you.
Most of the environmentalists that I know are very much in favor of increasing housing density and reducing commute time in ICE vehicles. Current housing policy does neither of these things.
So-called environmentalists don't have a monopoly on hypocrisy, it's pretty much universal.
The anti local density environmental crowd might represent more dollars, though. That's perhaps the issue.
I suspect, however that the divide is more generational. For the older generation, environmentalism was far more about preserving local wildlands and the wildlife in your backyard. The environmental problems that face the younger generation are far larger in scope and far more deeply intertwined with questions about how we power society.
Paris also has a stellar and reliable public transport system and is very walkable. Bay Area wants the density (and property taxes inflow) but don’t want to invest in infrastructure and public transport.
They already have sufficient density and property prices to actually invest in infrastructure. The problem has always been Prop 13 and the artificial limits placed on taxes that would otherwise fund infrastructure locally.
Also..why should everyone feel like owning a home is a right? You can always rent. In fact, it’s a better economic decision because renters take advantage of best school districts within dealing with the hassle of home ownership. People buy property as an investment that is like an speculative asset these days. Homes should be a dwelling. There will always be those who have appreciating assets and those who will inherit. Punitively punishing them with taxes is just irresponsible and will create more instability.
At the end of the day, most of this is noise. CA is better than most places in the USA..America is better than most places in the world. The govt needs to stop manufacturing dissent and focus on what they need to do and aren’t doing..public transportation would alleviate housing issues. Universal healthcare will help people live their lives and remove the pressure of working for insurance.
How many people in their 50s and 60s would rather not work and just retire but continue because they need to pay for insurance. If they are going to work in the Bay Area, why not live in a home they had bought decades ago?
But it doesn’t matter..with automation and AI, jobs are going to dwindle anyways. It’s best not to create Uber dense cities as they will not be needed when people experience unemployment. We should look towards some kind of universal basic necessities/services and health care rather than building more and imagining that jobs will last forever. That’s just not going to happen. Period.
That’s very subjective. For example America ranks 143 out of 230 countries by murder rate. Economically, it’s better than average, but as a place to live it’s got serious issues.
Or, if you want to buy, buy a condo!
Similarly while the outskirts of Paris don't have a subway system (they have the RER, akin to BART) they are still very dense.
Walkability comes from density almost inevitably because it's financially doable to have more stores/activities/restaurants in a smaller space while still getting customers. This makes walking around the city interesting.
I think the issues in the Bay Area cities I know relatively well (SF and SJ) comes down to political will to zone neighborhoods properly.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/06/in-fight-against-urba...
I'm so confused by your reaction, are there specific housing policies that are focused on the environment that have had bigger effects than things like prop 13? or cities with 30k jobs in a year but 300 units of housing (looking at you, mountain view)?
You can see the NIMBY lines so clearly.
I live at the yellow star at the top of the map. Needless to say, my lot is vastly smaller than an acre :)
The ads date is 1913.
That makes me rethink how much zoning is about muni's forcing developers to do things. And how much of zoning is actually regulatory capture. Developers have always been pushing as much lux as the market and technology can bear. And home owners that are all in try to protect their investment in class distinction.
https://www.fostercity.org/community/page/creation-foster-ci...
It takes Palo Alto 30 years to do flood mitigation because of a couple frogs in the creek.
If Mountain View needs housing, make more land. It will never happen because there are always myriad obstacles to building.
https://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2010/09/30/landfill-and-liquefact...
Look how much of the city of SF was built on landfill. When was the last time a major bay area development was done on reclaimed land?
If anything, CEQA and other environmental regulations have contributed more to improving the quality of life for working class people and the poor than it has contributed to their detriment. California is the median for poverty in the US and also happens to be in the top 15 for quality of life while also being in the top 10 most environmentally friendly states. Because of that, I don't see a correlation between environmentalism and poverty.
>The bill also garnered support from environmental organizations, including Natural Resources Defense Council and California PIRG, because of its potential to reduce the carbon pollution that comes from long driving commutes.