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Comment by lazide | Hacker News Reader

Someone who moved to Atherton after helping form the tech industry isn't benefitting from living nearby and passively getting rich from proximity.

Or did you mean something else?

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I didn't add the qualifier "passively." You did. I think it's great if people are contributing to the region's wealth via their work, but it doesn't affect my argument. The fact is that the locality of Atherton is full of people whose home values are high because of their homes' proximity of the tech industry (this includes Marc Andreesen), and they're not willing to liberalize their zoning ordinances because, as a housing cartel, town landowners benefit from restricted supply. You were acting like the reason there's high demand for housing in Atherton is that it has low density, but what distinguishes Atherton from a random, low-cost town like Muskeegon, Michigan is its location smack-dab in the center of Silicon Valley. You could replace all the mansions in Atherton with high-density condos and they'd get snapped up by tech workers in a short period of time. You'd end up with way more property taxes paid to the state, way more people housed, way more economic growth for the region, and way less pollution as people lived closer to their place of work. Not to mention, the locality wouldn't be suing the caltrain to prevent electrification, because its residents would actually depend on public transport.

Ah, you're angry because people who made a lot of money are spending it? And in a place that offends you?

Even in Manhattan, the folks with the money are rarely spending much time on the subway.

It seems like you'd rather there not be rich people?

What? Where are you getting this? I have no problem with rich people. My problem is with cartels of homeowners passing laws making it illegal for individuals to build higher-density housing on the land that they own. The city of Atherton is a legal entity granted certain limited legislative purview by the California constitution, and it uses that purview to impede the economic flourishing of the state of California. The California consistution gives the state every right to overrule Atherton's dumb zoning rules, and the state legislature should do so.

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