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by imapeopleperson 1404 days ago
I don’t understand why NIMBY hate is in vogue.

What’s wrong with letting a nice town stay nice? We don’t need to turn everything to shit just to satiate socialist schadenfreude.

Build it somewhere else

12 comments

I have nowhere near the same problem with someone who claims the things Andreesesen does in his angry rebuke of this project, if that person doesn't at the same time preach for elsewhere what they very visibly don't want to practice close to home. Again, this is why NIMBYsm is so detested, not so much because of its specific arguments but because of its often overtly disgusting hypocrisy.
I hate nimbys for their effect on the world, not their hypocrisy. Even if mark andressen wasn’t a two faced bastard I’d hate him.
If that's how you think, then at least I hope you're not writing massive essays asking (the rest of) the entire the nation to build more housing, even if it makes neighbourhoods ugly.
There's plenty of space in the US. Grow wide, not dense. It's good policy.
What you are saying is, "convert farmland to housing and highways."

It's an inefficient use of space, it socially isolates us, and it has devastating ecological consequences.

Suddenly, all non-urban space in the US becomes farmland.
Show me land on the periphery of an urban center that's large enough to meaningfully expand housing that isn't farmland, rangeland, forestry, or a protected habitat/important ecological preserve.

I'll wait, take your time.

Yes, legislative capture and over-zealous zoning are real problems.
How is growing wide good policy?
covering more and more land in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impervious_surface is not a good idea either
Generally solved by incentivizing large lush green lawns for single family housing in large tracts. The lawns have the added benefit of capturing carbon and increasing air quality.

Mandating one 18-hole golf course for every 2K people in municipalities would also create positive offsets to impervious surface and add to the benefit.

urban sprawl is both economically and ecologically unsustainable
> Build it somewhere else

Reminds me of a Ben Shapiro quote:

Let's say for the sake of argument that all of the water levels around the world rise by, let's say, five feet over the next 100 years. Say 10 feet over the next 100 years. And it puts all of the low-lying areas on the coast underwater. Let's say all of that happens. You think people aren't just going to sell their homes and move?

This quote is hilarious to me. Sell it to who, Ben? Sell it to who?

"Want to buy my land?"

"Sure, why are you selling?"

"It'll be literally devoured by the seas soon and totally worthless."

"That sounds like a great investment. Sold!"

This is about to happen as we speak now that Colorado is stopping water deliveries.

How do you sell a multi-million dollar home in a remote location with no access to water?

If people want houses to be treated as investments, then they should be punished as such when their bet goes sideways.

Lose money imvested in stock/crypto/whatever? Too bad so sad.

House value even so much as commits the sin of not appreciating because of whatever reason? Stop the presses and think of the children!

I don't want housing to be an investment. But I also own a house that will inevitably be treated like one because that's the currently supported cultural standard.

I don't think ordinary folks should lose their shirts off their backs if they lose their homes. Sure, I have zero sympathy for the investors who are manipulating markets, but the every day worker? Nah.

"Sell the homes to who... Aquaman?" [0]

https://youtu.be/0-w-pdqwiBw?t=16

Fish need housing too!
"Build it somewhere else"

Usually if the solution seems that simple, and you think everyone else is an idiot for not realizing it, then they are not the ones being idiots. It's a pattern we should all consider when we "don't understand" a widely understood concept.

And I don‘t understand why the idea that the only way to keep things nice is to never change anything, ever, is en vogue. I find it incredibly uninspired and depressing.
TFA is specifically about Andreessen publicly saying CA needs to build more housing, but then privately saying "don't build it here"

> Build it somewhere else

If everybody says "build it somewhere else" where are you supposed to build?

Because its no different from a seizure of private property without due process and compensation.

My land, I decide what gets built there.

Don't like it? Buy it off of me for the price I state.

Boo hoo, mark andressen the billionaire experiences minor inconvenience. Sometimes the government seizing private land is good.
It's not socialist to allow private entities to build the housing that the market demands on the land they own in order to make money. It's much closer to "socialist" to have state apparatus dictating that people not build housing.

I own and live in an 80-year old single family house. My neighborhood -- one of the more desirable ones in my city -- has had a massive ongoing build out of 3-5 story apartment buildings in the past 10 years. They don't bother me in the least. It's either that or people can't afford to live here, which seems bad.

> AB 686 requires all public agencies to “administer programs and activities relating to housing and community development in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing, and take no action inconsistent with this obligation”

AB 686 also makes changes to Housing Element Law to incorporate requirements to AFFH as part of the housing element and general plan to include an analysis of fair housing outreach and capacity, integration and segregation, access to opportunity, disparate housing needs, and current fair housing practices.

Every nice town was a lot nicer in the past. Including Atherton. By that logic, he should tear his house down and give his land to his neighbors, making the town nicer.
Guess you aren't a people person after all.
How so? Ruining a nice town hurts more people than it helps
How does more housing ruin a town?
Peopleperson is trying to dodge around saying they don't want to live near people who are lower income. Often this is a way of saying, "I don't want people with different ethnic, racial, or cultural backgrounds near me."

It's pretty transparent discrimination, tbh.

I tried to respond to them constructively elsewhere, but this is the correct take so I'm just gonna agree with it.
It's more the density that people object to, not more people, or more housing. It's when there's an area in the denominator. More density means more cars, more air pollution, more traffic, more noise. More accidents, more time searching for parking and standing in lines. It may not add up to ruin, but it's objectively worse.
It... Doesn't have to mean any of those things? Trains and bikes (and ebikes) and scooters and sidewalks and buses and trolleys and streetcars exist.

You don't have to design around the car...

Probably best to try the trolley and scooter thing in a new town where everyone who moved there knew what they were getting.
Socialist? Letting you build whatever you want on your own property is the spirit of capitalism. NIMBYs are the ones who want every town to be run by central planning.
Socialism doesn't even mean central planning either. Most socialists are just interested in, "everyone who wants a home should be able to get a home." Not necessarily a big fancy home with a three car garage, but somewhere they can call their own.

Even if that means billionaires might lose some of their home value.

Sure, but targeted political messaging shouldn't be concerned with things like factual accuracy. The people who complain about socialists don't know any self-identified US socialists, since those Bernie-type people didn't exist before 2016.
Totally. I'm a Marxist and I have no idea where half the complaints about socialists even come from. People just make up a bogeyman and slap the "socialism" label on it.
>Build it somewhere else

Okay... _where_?

Thats the whole point of why NIMBY is reviled. Not In My Back Yard.

If no one is saying YIMBY, does anyone really want it?
> does anyone really want it?

It's probably safe to assume the people who need affordable housing want it.

People are saying YIMBY. There's a whole YIMBY movement.
So there's the answer to where.
Hmm... So thinking out loud, this zoning change is being considered by the city council, right? Who are elected representatives of the area, right?

Wouldn't that indicate there's at least some YIMBY attitude in this location?