[TomV1971]

As an outsider, it’s easy to dismiss this.

But now think if you happen to live on just that one plot of land in the street, right next to the development, that will now be in the shadow of the new building.

Would you be happy about it?

I wouldn’t, and neither would you.

[mywittyname]

It doesn't matter if he's happy about it. The owners of the land are doing what they are legally entitled to. Right to light is repudiated in the US.

If having a garden is a high priority for him, he has several options. He could buy the plot of land from the developer for $1.4MM or he could move to an area more amenable to gardening.

[TomV1971]

In the context of a belittleing “Oh, the horror”, it’s perfectly acceptable to argue that he has he right to not be happy about it.

[myroon5]

It's fine to be unhappy. The distinction is whether or not you use your slight dissatisfaction as reason enough to take away their rights as a property owner.

[badpun]

Interesting, a right to light is actually mandated in my home country (Poland). Here’s a photo of bizzarely shaped hotel because of it: https://t-ec.bstatic.com/images/hotel/max1024x768/172/172445...

[ng12]

I wouldn't be happy about it, but unless I have a legal right to control what happens to that plot of land I should go pound sand.

[s73ver_]

Does that plot have a legal right to control what happens on your plot? Cause that is what's going on here: they would interfere with the other person's plot.

[ng12]

What are you talking about? They're not controlling my plot. We each build our houses on our respective plots -- live and let live.

They have regulations for this in NYC: if you want to control what can be built next to your building you can buy the airspace surrounding it. For large buildings this is usually done in a deal that involves a concession such as a public park. If you don't want to pay to preserve the open space next to your building you don't get to keep it.

[dionidium]

This is why I think we need to be absolutely upfront and clear about our priorities here. Too many people, too often try to quell these fears about parking, or shadows, or traffic, or whatever.

I propose total, brutal honesty and transparency: more density means more housing, more people, more traffic, more shadows, and less parking.

It also solves one of the largest issues facing our cities: affordable housing.

Let's just be entirely clear that that's a more important outcome than the impacts on your free parking spot, the shadows on your garden, the number of people crowding up your favorite parks and cafes, and on and on an on -- even on the loss of existing home values.

I hear your objections. I don't think you're wrong to have them. They are perfectly rational.

They're just less important than the alternative.

This is an enormous country. There is room out there for your single-family housing. But not in our most urban areas. There are policy goals that vastly outweigh anybody's desire to live in a bucolic country ranch minutes from skyscrapers.

[sliverstorm]

not in our most urban areas

That's half the problem; these aren't urban areas. Now people that don't live there want to urbanize them, and the people that do live there don't.

There is room out there for your single-family housing

Somewhat of an ironic statement, given there was plenty of room for their house when it was built.

[dionidium]

1) They clearly are urban areas today, no matter how intensely you want to ignore that reality.

2) The Valley used to be perfect for single-family houses and peach-tree orchards or whatever. And at one point in very recent history the island of Manhattan was a dense forest.

Who cares?

Neither fact has literally anything to do with the maximally beneficial housing and zoning policies we should be pursuing in those places today.

[sliverstorm]

I have ethical hangups over telling people to get out because I want to urbanize their property & neighborhood, and that they should have moved to a more rural area (it was when they moved there). Smacks of the old sins of colonialism to me. We roll in, decide it's all ours now, and the original inhabitants can take a hike if they don't like it.

I don't mind converting neighborhoods so much after the original inhabitants have moved on, but there are still countless people around who moved there & bought when it was all peaches and single-family homes were entirely reasonable. I'm not really OK with evicting them.

[dionidium]

The language of gentrification (and of housing in general) is deliberately emotionalized in this way and I think it’s a real impediment to thinking clearly on the subject.

I don’t want to evict anybody. I want people to make the totally banal and normal year-over-year decision about where to live that literally every human being has made for all of human history.

We don’t “roll in” and make them leave. We roll in and make them a market offer that they can accept or decline.

And, crucially, I’m proposing the sort of development that makes rents lower, not higher. (Incumbents always win this game, anyway. Don’t feel sorry for incumbents.)

What you don’t get to do is stop progress because of nostalgia. Short of that, I have no desire to make anybody live anywhere.

[aeorgnoieang]

As an insider, it's also easy to dismiss the dashed hopes of all the potential people that might get to live in the new development.

Why are you pushing for only one of these groups of people? And why should other people take the same position? And how should outsiders generally side between them?

[TomV1971]

I have no stake in this particular race, but I try to see things from both points of views.

And I know from experience that what looks ridiculous and petty for an outsider is suddenly much less so when it impacts you personally.

[forgotmysn]

you're right. better to let the housing crisis continue than to support a solution that slightly inconveniences me.

[TomV1971]

Yes, I think about it this way as well. In general.

Until it happens to impact me personally.

I’m not proud of it, but I haven’t seen anyone who doesn’t react the same way. Nobody like to give up good things that they already have (especially if they paid $1M+ for it.)

[mywittyname]

People are assholes (you and me included). That's why we have so many laws (and lawsuits) about this kind of thing.

[TomV1971]

Exactly. :-)

And it’s great progress if people at least realize that they are, or would be in the same situation as that Berkeley neighborhood.

[s73ver_]

Suppose someone sells their home grown produce to supplement their income. Now, the neighboring plot is interfering with their ability to do that.

[TulliusCicero]

I might not be happy about a halfway house or homeless shelter opening up in my neighborhood either, but I wouldn't protest either of them because I have an ounce of self-awareness and I'm not a giant toddler who thinks only of themselves.

NIMBYs want us to accept their selfishly dicking other people over as acceptable. It's not.