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Comment by weeksie | Hacker News Reader

Well, it's not even a matter of that. If they don't want new development then the price of what's already there will only skyrocket and that will end up excluding the residents.

In other words, by refusing to develop, the residents of Hawaii are displacing their own natives, unless they happen to own land. This alternative system where the only folks allowed to own property are those who are born there is something I hear a lot of anti-housing people advocate and it's disturbingly similar to the hukou[1] system, which we probably don't want to emulate.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou

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> This alternative system where the only folks allowed to own property are those who are born there is something I hear a lot of anti-housing people advocate and it's disturbingly similar to the hukou[1] system, which we probably don't want to emulate.

In many cities you can own land if you don't have hukou, or even Chinese citizenship. It was only in 2012 or so that Beijing instituted a residency requirement (but not a hukou requirement) for buying a house in the city (other cities have similar but still slightly different rules, so you have to do your research). Wenzhou housewives were the scourge of non-Wenzhou Chinese real estate markets before they started investing in real estate abroad.

That system already exists in Hawaii actually. There’s lots of land you can’t own as a non-native.

If you're arguing that Hawaii should be returned to the Natives and they should have some kind of tribal rule, that's certainly something that you can advocate for.

In a world where this part of Hawaii exists within the US system of property rights, you're arguing that we should grant the current landowners (whoever they may be) perpetual rights to the extract land rents. Of course, given how expensive housing becomes when it is restricted in a high-demand location the implication is that the only folks who will be able to live there are the rich.

Not arguing just saying that's how it is now.

Hawaii is a highly limited resource. Simple as that. So you have a choice:

- Develop it more to keep prices a bit down. In exchange you are actively sacrificing what makes it desirable in the first place (beautiful nature).

- Don't develop it further, and accept high prices.

Neither is ideal. I wish we could have 100 Hawaii's and everyone could live in Hawaii.

But out of the two options we have, keeping Hawaii expensive and beautiful is the only one that makes sense. Developing it sacrifices what people like about it anyway.

I also think in general you should listen to what local people want and not advocate for things against their interests. Just as a rule of thumb. The alternative is basically colonization (pushing an agenda against the interests of the people who live somewhere).

> you are actively sacrificing what makes it desirable in the first place

Amazing how the carrying capacity of every location just happens to be exactly the number of people who live there at this moment in time.

> I also think in general you should listen to what local people want and not advocate for things against their interests. Just as a rule of thumb. The alternative is basically colonization (pushing an agenda against the interests of the people who live somewhere).

The local people quoted in the article want to be able to live somewhere. Building enough housing for them to live in gives them that, even if they don't understand it because their heads are full of xenophobic nonsense.

The guy who I quoted above is a renter, he will eventually be priced out. The guy who owns the house he was renting will build a new house or sell to someone else and they will rent it at a much higher rate.

Why do you assume the baseline density for places is almost always low? That to me seems like as unlikely of an assumption as assuming they are always at capacity or too high.

For example to me the places I’ve lived -

San Francisco is at a good density. I don’t want more high rises, the Victorians are charming and the sunlight while walking on the streets is already being eroded by ugly 4-story developments.

San Diego - also pretty good as is. Again why ruin the sunlight and nature by going up? Maybe downtown and fill in a bit more but not outside.

Hawaii - Waikiki is crowded and mostly ugly, so I have all the proof I need it’s not desirable to have that spread any further. Congestion traffic is super high due to tourism many times of the year. The charm of Hawaii is directly linked to its lack of development, you can’t convince me (or like 99% of people) otherwise. Just ask around who wants more high rises there, will be an easy poll to run.

Extraordinary

> Amazing how the carrying capacity of every location just happens to be exactly the number of people who live there at this moment in time

Not so surprising at all if you've studied game theory and equilibrium pricing.

A (very) tiny bit of econ knowledge is dangerous, isn't it.

Markets find prices, yes, but that's not applicable to what we're discussing. Maybe in some Georgist utopia we might have housing prices being priced purely at their utility.

But that's not the NIMBY complaint. The NIMBY complaint is that wherever they live is at the perfect balance where any more development would only make things worse. Game theory and equilibrium pricing have nothing to do with that because in our current regulatory system, land owners can extract rents by blocking new development.

Every time I post in this Dunning-Kruger tar pit I'm reminded of why I usually abstain.

If there were no regulation at all, equilibriums would still exist. Yes, it might be melee than now, or could be less, but at the end of the day we are looking at scarce land and other resources, so there has to be some carry capacity for the land. It’s the same reason why San Francisco loses population sometime: it has too many people for the resources it provides, and costs rise, forcing people (or perhaps just encouraging them) to leave.

Yes, you can change the rules to get more people into a place, but you are just looking at a different equilibrium number to be reached. And then people like you will complain it is still too low, and nothing really changes.

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