itch.io

Politicians doing things that voters want is not a divide and conquer tactic.

Okay.  So what?  You don't have to live in a city if you don't want to.  People are living on homes on their own land or other people's land that they mutually agreed to use.  They are not living with you.

Besides, people are already here. Plus, there's children growing up and splitting off to start their own households, which will create more demand for housing.  We still need to build much more housing.

There's also the fact that much of the demand in cities is from native born Americans moving back into cities.  We would still need to build more housing in cities if we take into account just them. 

Also, my point about population growth not being infinite and not everyone is moving to America still stands.

Other countries have built densely with mostly only five story buildings and below, and they are much more dense then the urban parts of the U.S.  So yes, we can have low rise density to meet housing demand.

The polls I posted were in support of upzoning in general being a decently popular concept.  I did not make any claims about them supporting specifically five story buildings (but there are polls out there showing support for low rise density like that).

Lisa the nurse from Colorado thinks that NASA's budget makes up 10% of the budget, when it really is much less.  Does that make her a tyrant?  No, it does not.

We know that a lack of housing is the primary factor behind America's housing and homelessness crisis:  https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/

We also know that NIMBYs blocking new housing is the main reason for the housing shortage.

Other things we have tried, like rent control and vacancy taxes, have only helped a little bit with housing.  There's no other way to fix most of the housing and homelessness crisis without 

So, we have examined all the options, found most of them not sufficient, and arrive at building much more housing as the solution.  That's taking a broad view of things and examining all the options.

The polls I posted were in support of upzoning in general being a decently popular concept.  I did not make any claims about them supporting specifically five story buildings (but there are polls out there showing support for low rise density like that).  That's being honest.

Regular people are the ones who are suffering from high rents and homelessness because of a lack of housing.  Regular people are being made unhappy by shelling out huge parts of their income to landlords and struggling to find housing.  No wonder why ordinary people are angry at NIMBYs, because NIMBYs are making them miserable by blocking new housing.

So, we can conclude that on my end, there has been no tyranny.

Also, NIMBYs blocking housing are preventing ordinary people from exercising their property rights.  They are also blocking ordinary people from getting cheaper housing and blocking ordinary people from getting out of homelessness.  In short, they are reducing ordinary people's rights.

Ordinary people working for more housing are expanding ordinary people's property rights.  They are also helping ordinary people get cheaper housing and getting ordinary people out of homelessness.  They are expanding ordinary people's rights.

Tyrants are typically considered to be reducing ordinary people's rights.  Who are the tyrants, the NIMBYs who are reducing ordinary people's rights or the ordinary people for more housing who are increasing ordinary people's rights?

Also, a lot of what you originally brought up does not relate to the actual topic, the lack of housing for people.  Could you please try to keep to the actual topic?

You'll note that we've been discussing market rate housing.  The free market, if unburdened by NIMBYs, will build it for us.  There's no cost to you for the housing.

It turns out that density costs less then sprawl:  http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/03/Halifax-data.pdf  So, we are saving taxpayer money in the long run with density.

Plenty of other countries have densities at that level, like most European cities.  So, yes, it is very possible to upgrade infrastructure to and have an economy that supports that level.

Ditto for resources- other countries do it fine.  And density is a savings on resources:  https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-sa...  Denser areas use less resources per capita then sprawling areas.

Besides, the people are already here.  They're going to be using the resources anyway.  We're just building more housing to meet their needs.  And as above, density saves on those resources.

More housing and more density:

-Lowers rents and housing prices

-Reduces homelessness and all the negative effects from that

-Reduces poverty and inequality stemming from high rents 

-Reduces sprawl and its negative impacts on the environment 

-Reduces resources use

-Uses less taxpayer money per capita then sprawling

-And more!

So, building more housing and allowing more density is a holistic solution that addresses a lot of society's problems.  The underlying problem is that people don't have enough housing, and that is causing all sorts of other issues.  

Other "solutions" like not building housing and forcing ordinary people to pay very high rents and driving ordinary people to homelessness are heavy handed in their effects.  Still other possible solutions like rent control solve only a little of the issue.  Building more housing is the solution that fixes most of the issue.

We have considered the housing and homelessness crisis from a wide variety of views (it's negative impact on ordinary people's lives, it's negative impact on ordinary people's finances, it's negative impact on the environment, it's negative impact on city finances), etc.)  We have gotten a lot of information about it that expands our knowledge in all directions, and found that building more housing has a lot of positives for ordinary people.  We have found that not enough housing is the underlying issue, and building more housing fixes that.

Building more housing is the best solution for a lack of housing for people.