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by local_issues 1036 days ago
If we would let capitalists build instead of pretending that housing just appears magically, we’d have a better world.

Investment funds state in filings that they buy properties in NIMBY areas because the local policies protect their investment.

2 comments

I’m a diehard YIMBY, but this isn’t really “not in my backyard” it’s more like: don’t prey on my (or my neighbor’s) emotionally and financially vulnerable state in order to buy my backyard (and also the rest of my house).

So not NIMBY but

DPOMEAFVSIOTBMBY

Maybe; in Maui's case, there's already significant water shortages (https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/hawaii-resorts-worsen-...).

The folks snapping up property there are likely to be more NIMBY, not less. Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Ellison aren't buying land in Hawaii to fill it with affordable housing.

I was just out there in July. There's an entire class of rich entitled a-hole that hate tourists in Hawaii and they're normally the exotically rich (often they're in the guise of a surfer). Had one yell at my daughter while she was waiting for the bathroom (I wasn't there). Those guys aren't capitalists, they're crony capitalists. They want local jurisdictions to keep the tourists out (kill the economy) so that they can buy up land and real-estate and convert the area to something like a British Virgin Islands tax haven. Zuckerberg is one of these guys. Many of the locals in Maui were saved by the tourist industry when their agriculture exports cratered. They made a seamless transition and there are thousands of locals that are able to live comfortably whereas others have struggled because of housing costs. But even the tourist industry is under attack now. I hope they're able to navigate this so that the greatest amount of people in that area are able to maintain their livelihoods and keep their way of life.