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Comment by jandrese | Hacker News Reader

I get the sentiment about "why would I let people who aren't going to stay long term decide how the city is run?" but in the end it creates a city that is indifferent or even hostile to people in that situation. It ends up disenfranchising a population that will always be there, even if the people who make up that population is constantly changing.

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Thank you. I know people who have lived in Amsterdam for over five years but can't vote for local politics because of their legal status or because they are illegally subletting due to the shitty housing market in The Netherlands.

Don't complain about people not being engaged with local politics if you don't allow them to vote.

The ones who will “always be there” can get their papers for permanent residence done and vote. If they don’t want to (or can’t since they don’t have the legal grounds to even stay there for longer), then they shouldn’t have a say on decisions that can permanently change things about the place.

That is only possible with stable and legal housing. Not everyone is privileged to be in that situation, especially not with the housing market in many countries.

With your thinking you are creating a class of subhumans where you enjoy the benefits of their labour but you are not allowing them to vote. Like African Americans in the US not that long ago.

No, it's actually nothing like us. It's also annoying and insulting that we have to be the symbol for every victim of anything.

Black Americans are not nomads. We're forced out by them.

I’m not talking about nomads. I’m talking about people who live there for years, sometimes decades

What exactly is your current legal status in Amsterdam and the Netherlands/EU?

There will always be the population of people who will be in short term housing or similar situations, but due to their circumstances the individual people will come and go. 5 years from now the makeup of the itinerant population may be almost entirely different, but the people in that population are in the same circumstances, especially if they don't have any political representation.

Who is going to speak for the people who aren't allowed to vote?

In my country, citizens without a permanent address (which is very few people, those who have no place of theirs mostly register at someone elses for easier administration) can still sign up and vote, so that leaves us with just the people who don’t have the permits to even stay here permanently.

I’m also not expecting to fly to country X, book an airbnb for 6 months or get a summer job, and then just somehow be entitled to vote there.

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