Hacker News Reader

Comment by CubsFan1060 | Hacker News Reader

I see you are getting downvoted, but I think you are right.

People spend a lot of money finding a neighborhood and home they like. If you build next to a huge open field, you need to assume it could become anything. But if you build in a neighborhood that is built out, you like the feel of, and then it suddenly changes... that's a scary prospect.

View on HN

That itself is a product of current culture. Since the Second World War the expectation in most places is that cities and towns get built and then just grow with new permanent neighbourhoods. Nothing changes, the city just gets appended to.

On the other hand someone living in New York City in 1900 would have no expectation of their area staying the same forever - things were constantly getting replaced because that was the culture of the the time - replace something old with something better.

This is probably just a product of the car making it practical to throw up new far flung developments instead of modifying the development of existing dense areas.

Robert Caro’s “The power broker” talks about that for anyone looking for a quick read. Hundreds of thousands of people displaced for the “better” of the community.

Unless you buy a home simply to rent it out to others, you need to be an active participant in its affairs. At the bare minimum, it means staying abreast in what’s going on. Any responsible homebuyer would have done their due diligence in at least asking the realtor what is the current trend of the local community, long before any papers are signed. Zoning law changes should never come as a “sudden” surprise, especially since they are universally a source of controversy.

I'm going to guess you might be young? People in my neighborhood have owned their houses for decades. Are you saying that someone buying a house in 1988 should have foreseen all the changes in the following 35 years?

If you’ve been living in the same neighborhood in 35 years you should be even more familiar with the changes going on to it, hell, you should even be an active participant in aiding or resisting change if you’re such a firmly-established local. There should be no surprises if you’ve been there since 1988. The talk of “suddenly changes” - which is the whole point of this subthread - does not apply to you.

And then 8 people show up at a city council meeting and set you on a path of financial ruin. The whole point of american government is that it shouldnt interfere with your life.

Local homeowners are an incredibly powerful bloc and have successfully thwarted development and upzoning in myriads of communities. The idea of “outside agitators” coming in and having the power to change your community is a specious, pernicious myth. It also undercuts the principles of American democracy. If you want things to stay exactly the way they are, then you must fight for it, you cannot expect others to do it for you.

> The idea of “outside agitators” coming in and having the power to change your community is a specious, pernicious myth.

Pessimistically, one could view the missions of HFH and and many HUD programs (esp. FHA) as exactly that. Every house built, bought, or renovated can affect change, and external assistance can tilt the changes. Ditto big developers coming in to "revitalize" urban areas.

However, while I would agree that local government is still generally pretty answerable to local voters, state and federal grants and other "external" sources of money can and do alter their priorities. Changing demographics, esp. simple population growth, can attenuate or amplify various voting blocs over time. Most change happens very slowly at first, but then suddenly accelerates.

No matter your politics, I think there are good examples of this. Whether it be poorer neighborhoods that suddenly get gentrified after decades of stability, pricing out families who've lived there for generations, or richer neighborhoods that suddenly get a low-cost complex built nearby to qualify for a grant or comply with a DOJ "consent agreement", the character of a neighborhood _can_ change quickly even if it generally _doesn't_. In these situations, the most that participating in local government will get you is advance warning, which is a lot less useful for the poorer example than the richer one.

That is a much more nuanced and even-handed description of the state of things than a simplistic “housing activists have invaded my council meeting” bogeyman.

Sorry you lost me at "american democracy".

It is simply an echo of “the whole point of american government is […].” Did you lose yourself too while writing your own comment?

No, as in the pernicious myth is that american democracy is a thing, that it ever existed, that it ever will exist, and/or that such a thing would be desirable.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity.

Its a political topic, and you have taken an ideological stance towards it. If you want to say this topic shouldnt be on hacker news, I agree with you. Conversely, if you cant take the heat then get out of the kitchen.

Avowing extremist positions is indulging in trolling and unsubstantiative. It is also (con)ceding your position as indefensible and not worth talking about.

It is scary. But so what, it’s not that one bought the right to not have things change. If one doesn’t want things to change around them, they have to buy the land around them, easy as that. The market will fix take care of it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com