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Comment by GasVeteran | Hacker News Reader

I think it is perfectly fine that people that actually live in an area get to decide what it looks like. If people don't involve themselves in that process and it is monopolized by people "with too much time on their hands" that is their fault. If they don't like the busy bodies then they should make time and actually go to the meetings.

You decide you own level of involvement in the community.

> I note that your example doesn't seem to have a problem putting car parks in, incidentally.

It is very interesting that whenever you bring up an example where it illustrates a particular point well, they will try to find anything they can point to so they can dismiss the general point being made. Guess what, a place in rural England that you can only travel easily to via car or coach will prioritise parking.

BTW I suspect knowing that area, you probably couldn't build anything other than parking in those places.

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The challenge is that the people who live in an area use the rules in such a way as to make building new homes very expensive or outright impossible. The people who would like to live in that area have no say, and lack representation.

The bigger picture here is that it means even two rational people can inadvertently make the situation worse for themselves.

Person A lives in City A, but wants to move to City B

Person B lives in City B, but wants to move to City A

Person A votes to make it hard to build new homes in city A, because it makes their own home worth more.

Person B votes to make it hard to build new homes in City B, because it makes their own home worth more.

It makes sense in a self-interested way but both wind up worse off.

And I just meant that the car park is butt-ugly and shows the council's true priorities. They could at least put it on the edge of the village.

> The challenge is that the people who live in an area use the rules in such a way as to make building new homes very expensive or outright impossible. The people who would like to live in that area have no say, and lack representation.

Okay so what? I think that is perfectly fine. It isn't necessary for everyplace to cater for everyone.

> The bigger picture here is that it means even two rational people can inadvertently make the situation worse for themselves. > > Person A lives in City A, but wants to move to City B > > Person B lives in City B, but wants to move to City A > > Person A votes to make it hard to build new homes in city A, because it makes their own home worth more. > > Person B votes to make it hard to build new homes in City B, because it makes their own home worth more. > > It makes sense in a self-interested way but both wind up worse off.

These seems like a fantasy scenario to me. Typically people are either moving to a particular area, or out of a particular area, not swapping one nice affluent area for another equally affluent area (which is somewhat assumed in your scenario).

The reason btw housing is expensive is because housing became an investment vehicle isn't because of nimby's and we have about 600,000 (net) people entering the UK every year.

So… if I move to a county I can decide nobody else gets to build a house there? Even on land I don’t own?

That isn't the argument being made and you know it.

It very much is, in the aggregate.

Not at all. It is quite clear that you are doing the "lets take this to the logical extreme". That might be fine in some sort of debate club tactic but it isn't what I was suggesting should happen at all and you know it. So I think we will leave it there.

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