[princearthur]

Indeed artificial housing supply restrictions are about 100000000% more important. Alas, a portion of the progressive left was co-opted by the housing barons many decades ago. I believe California voters would be more progressive otherwise.

Here in SF, a good example is the leading progressive mayoral candidate, Peskin. He's basically a housing subversive. He'll pay lip service to it, then sabotage YIMBY efforts. Earlier this year he sponsored an ordinance blocking higher density in parts of his district. The current mayor vetoed it [1] but he got the board to override the veto [2].

The barons originally sold suburban supply restrictions as anti-sprawl measures, co-opting the greener factions of the left. Then they sold density restrictions as anti-traffic measures.

No suburbs + no density = no new housing.

Luckily this unholy coalition has started to crumble a few years ago. A large majority of Democrats is now in favor of more housing.

[1] https://sfstandard.com/2024/03/14/san-francisco-breed-peskin...

[2] https://sfist.com/2024/03/26/supervisors-override-breeds-vet...

[epistasis]

It's been rather shocking hearing one President candidate push Peskin-like policy (Trump), and the other the policies of Peskin's nemeses (Harris). Of course since Harris is from Oakland, slightly younger, and doesn't come from trust fund money, her background would be more likely to align with fair housing policy than Peskin.

[princearthur]

It's really an amazing study in political science. Progressives are supposed to be all about helping the poor, but some were sold a camouflaged dystopia.

To reach utopia - the fantasy goes - we must first travel through a dystopia in which the poor are enserfed by the housing barons, paying upwards of 70% of their income in rent. Unfortunately the dystopia never ends in practice.

Then there's the perplexing question of how real estate taxation got to this point. As the saying goes, a real estate family that pays any income tax at all needs to fire their tax advisor.

[ttyprintk]

And that last point describes a certain entitled developer over the last decade. Obsessively beg not to pay taxes, for example running the old DC post office building after winning a competitive bid, where everyone one else priced in the cost of doing business.