[tech_ken]

I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Most of the actually important housing policy isn't decided by direct vote, it's handled by an unelected committee which uses in-person feedback provided during open sessions to make decisions. A quick review of The Discourse turns up plenty of evidence that these types of arrangements often result in uneven participation in local planning decisions across demographics. If we want house policy to be "democratic" we need to consider how to plausibly canvas the local community and balance their interests against the well-being of the wider region.

[lazide]

If there was a large portion of the electorate that organized and wanted more housing, all those other changes would happen, as the controlling elected officials would be replaced.

I’ve seen it. Rent control too. It’s rare though, as the segment of the population who does has historically poor turnover and is chronically confused and disorganized.

Pro ‘keep it the same’ groups (and pro landlord groups) tend to be composed of retired professionals with decades of experience generating (and wading) through red tape, and have no issues rallying the most consistent voting block in any area - retirees who don’t want their largest assets and (literal) roof over their heads screwed with.

What you’re talking about is that the governing structure gets setup to diffuse blame and obfuscate responsibility so activists don’t have any obvious individuals they can easily attack. That’s by design, but not the ‘problem’.

Not the same thing.

[tech_ken]

I don't find your "if people wanted it, it would happen" argument very convincing, nor do I understand how the situations you describe in your second and third paragraphs are (a) different from each other and (b) different from what I'm arguing is undemocratic. As far as I can tell it seems that we agree that different interest groups have different capabilities for manifesting their political preferences in local government. Is there an actual difference between our viewpoints? Like are you arguing that people don't actually want more housing? Or are we just quibbling over semantics?

[lazide]

I’m arguing that the voting blocs who actually show up consistently don’t want more housing, yes. At least anywhere near where they live.

Because when you get down to the details, more housing would;

a) cost many of them a lot of money (they get income from renting out, and higher rents == more money) or hurt the value of their assets (more stock == less value for the house(s) they own).

b) lead to significant quality of live impacts they don’t want. More traffic, busier stores, more noise, crowded parks, more crime, more expensive cost of living, etc.

The gov’t structures follow that and produce the outcomes they want, and insulate them from blowback. Or the people in charge get replaced until someone does do that. The gov’t structure is the symptom, not the cause.

Grandma doesn’t like looking like the bad guy. Grandma wants to be comfortable. Grandma’s kids long ago moved out and live somewhere else, so fuck all the younger folks making noise and keeping her up at night. They should go live somewhere else and be someone else’s problem.

At least until the demographics have shifted enough that another group is able to tell the retirees to shut up and sit down. Which always happens eventually.

It’s pretty obvious frankly if you watch how things play out.

[tech_ken]

Ok I think we fully agree on pretty much every point. Cheers!