This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
California YIMBY, "Governor Newsom Signs Historic Housing Legislation: SB 79 Culminates Eight-Year Fight to Legalize Homes Near Transit" Also covered in Politico, LA Times, CalMatters, SF Chronicle, SF Standard, Berkeleyside, Streetsblog SF... this is a big deal. (Part of a long-running series on housing, mostly in California. Now also at TheSchism.)
To quote the Governor's press office, "HUGE NEWS!! YIMBY'S REJOICE !!". Signing statement here, press release from Scott Wiener here. Bill text here.
For more details about how we got here, see this recap from Jeremy Linden, the vote lists from CalMatters, and my previous recap from when SB 79 first made it out of committee. This was the last of ten veto points this bill had to pass, and it changed markedly over the process: most counties were exempted, ferries and high-frequency bus routes without dedicated lanes no longer count, projects over 85 feet must now use union labor, there are now below-market-rate set-asides, and other such bagel toppings. It only applies to "urban transit counties", those with more than fifteen rail stations; that's only eight of California's fifty-eight counties: Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Santa Clara, Alameda, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Mateo, but those counties contain sixty percent of the state's population.
But of those ten veto points, it passed five of them by a single vote. (It depends exactly how you count.) Every compromise, every amendment, every watering-down was necessary to get this across the finish line. Aisha Wahab, Senate Housing chair and villain of the previous post, switched her vote to support SB 79 in the final concurrence in the Legislature, as did Elena Durazo, Senate Local Government chair, who had also opposed it originally. This has, as noted above, been eight years in the making. It will largely go into effect next July 1.
Newsom also signed a variety of other housing bills, though none were specifically as important as SB 79: AB 253 allows for third-party permit approvals if the city drags their feet, for example.
This completes a remarkably victorious legislative cycle for the YIMBYs. Along with surprise CEQA reform, Jeremy White of Politico called it: "from upzoning to streamlining to CEQA exempting, the biggest housing year I've seen in 10+ years covering Sacramento".
What, realistically, are the consequences of this actually going to be?
I wonder if "build more housing!" is the "decriminalize drugs!" of the latest generation and once we finally kick that into high gear we'll reap a bunch of unintended side effects that are horrible but nobody wanted to think about at the time.
I expect not. It was easy to build for the longest time and then we artificially made it difficult. The current situation is the more anomalous one.
America has famously lagged behind other cities of the world in dense urbanism. So, we have a few decades of data from tall-dense cities to read into. NYC is the only exception in the US. and it is a good exception at that. Broadly, nothing catastrophic happened. Ofc, the assumption is that densification comes with an increase in aggregate local taxes and greater investment in public infrastructure (transit, services, etc).
I would like to hear the negative side-effects that you suspect more housing will bring.
IMO, The american youth starting to adopt a nihilistic lying flat mindset, and the lack of affordable housing (esp. in urban areas) has played a role in making it worse. However, building more housing alone is not going to solve this multifaceted problem. So, if the YIMBYs win, there will be more housing and nihilism will continue (if slightly slowed down). In 50 years, some may see that the nihilism and YIMBY movement coincided with each other and wrongly draw a causal link.
Building more housing is like fixing the Ozone layer. When you do it right, nothing happens. Life goes on, and people don't appreciate it because the negative thing never happened. Classic preparedness paradox.
To be clear,
build more housing != build more ugly housing.
This is a 5+1, and this is a 5+1. This is one of the reasons I am strongly against "affordable housing". Build more market rate housing, so the buyer can impose their aesthetic preferences onto the developer.
build more housing = building more housing in urban areas with a huge shortages.
Supply-demand is alright in most of the US. Mostly limited to Boston, NYC, DC, Miami, Austin, Phoenix, LA, SD, SF, Portland, Seattle problem.
build more housing != fit a studio into what used to be 4 bed, so we can all live in kowloon walled city.
build more housing != sprawl out more
More housing means more vertical expansion and more infills.
build more housing = build better transit.
That means safer transit too. (this is a huge issue between YIMBYs and Leftists. YIMBYs are generally pro-police and hard on crime)
Austin has built so much housing that it's the only metro to have seen rents decline in recent years.
Yeah, Austin is a shining example of how to deal with the problem well.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link