Post by penguincascadia in Sim Nimby comments

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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.

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.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago

You are starting to become quite incoherent. ("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." Not only does it not make sense, it also doesn't reference anything.)

When I ask how you imagine to build these 88 Paris over the next 50 years and you respond that population growth isn't infinite, then it's quite obvious that you haven't even considered the scale of things and now simply hide behind vague generalities and deliberate, ridiculous exaggerations.

So, just tell me how you'll build these 88 Paris. How will you do it?

How many millions of people will you force out of their houses each year, just to move them into some smaller apartment, while bulldozing their garden "for the greater good"?

How. Will. You. Build. 88 Paris? How?

Just answer specifics instead of that wall-of-text that is just vague and ridiculous debate tactics ("we do not have INFINITE population growth", yeah, duh).

penguincascadia3 years ago (1 edit)

It was referencing your previous post where you said that ignorance is a sign of a tyrant, and I was providing an example of how people not knowing a particular fact is not them being a tyrant. Responding to other people arguments with a counterexample is being coherent.

I already responded to that with my previous points that other countries have already done it quite successfully. Just look at other developed countries with higher urban densities then most American cities. Eirope has twice the population of the U.S and has successfully built many, many cities worth of density. A lot of them achieve it through low rise density like the aforementioned five story or lower buildings. I've already mentioned this several times before, so I have considered the scale of things and have concrete examples to back it up.

See above.

As we have discussed before, upzoning allows other people (not you) to voluntarily build higher density housing on their own land to meet housing demand. No one is forcing other people to live with you. No one is forcing you to build more housing on your own property. No one is forcing people to live in dense housing- the demand is coming from people who voluntarily want to live in dense housing. I do not know where you are getting this from.

See my second paragraph here, and my previous detailed discussions in previous posts.

You seemed to imply earlier that there was infinite demand for housing in cities. I pointed out that there wasn't.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago

How will you build these 88 Paris in the next 50 years.

Just respond with an actual constructive, precise answer or let's just end the discussion, because it is becoming more and more pointless as you somehow blame regular people for the housing problem, while ignoring literally everything that caused it. While you push more demagoguery against regular people, you also claim that the majority are for it (so where is the problem coming from) and that nobody will be forced to do anything against their will (so why exactly are they even a problem if their will will be respected).

So, just answer how you'll build those 88 Paris in the next 50 years or don't bother responding. And no. I don't want to read another vague wall of text that doesn't address the actual problems and only bases everything on superficial, uncommitted opinion, while pointing at e.g. Europe as if Europe wasn't full of short and long term problems, which you simply ignore.

Just assume you were in power and people had elected you to "solve the housing problem". What exactly will you do? Write the actual policies. Bonuspoints if you include the cost of construction.

penguincascadia3 years ago (1 edit)

Let me repeat myself since I already explained how:

This is a constructive, precise answer- other countries have done it successfully, so we can too.

As we already discussed above in previous posts, the blocking of new housing by NIMBYs has caused a shortfall in the housing supply. This is causing higher rents and more homelessness. I am pointing out that NIMBYs are responsible for the housing and homelessness crisis.

Ordinary people, meanwhile, are the ones who are being hurt by the NIMBYs' policies. They are the ones who are paying high rents and becoming homeless because of the housing shortage caused by the NIMBYs. Note that I said NIMBYs are causing the shortage, not regular people (in this and previous posts). Pointing out that ordinary people are being hurt by NIMBY policies is the opposite of blaming ordinary people.

So, we have a cause of the housing crisis (not enough housing), which we have discussed in previous posts. Pointing out the cause of the housing crisis is the opposite of ignoring what caused it.

As already posted in a previous post, the majority of the public is very weakly politically engaged at the local level. They don't pay much attention to local politics. However, NIMBYs tend to be heavily engaged in local politics. Because of this, they have much more power in local politics then their size would suggest. Because of this, they are able to much more easily block new housing construction.

Pointing out that NIMBYs are responsible for the housing shortage is pointing out well established facts, the opposite of demagoguery.

There is a problem because NIMBYs are blocking people's property rights to build new housing supply on their own land. NIMBYs are not being forced to build anything on their own land, yet they are dictating other people's decisions on what to do with said other people's land.

People working to build more housing are not forcing anything upon anyone else.

NIMBYs blocking other people from building housing are forcing something upon them.

I have already explained how we can build more housing in previous posts. We can copy what other countries have done with allowing much more housing construction and do that. Just look at all the other countries with denser cities then American cities, which they acheive in large part with low rise, five story and below, density.

The European and other countries that have successfully built enough housing to have low rents and homelessness have solved problems because of this. They have lower housing prices for ordinary people and low rates of homelessness. Pointing out that they have solved problems is the opposite of ignoring problems.

I've already posted at length throughout all my posts here about what can be done to fix the housing shortage. Just allow the construction of much more housing (and as already talked about in here in a previous reply, because it is market rate private sector construction, no public funding is needed for the housing construction) . That's it, that's the policy.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago

"Just allow the construction of much more housing (and as already talked about in here in a previous reply, because it is market rate private sector construction, no public funding is needed for the housing construction) . That's it, that's the policy. "

That's something I've already said I support. I'm opposing your "It's no longer a personal choice" attitude as it's so connected to your completely terrifying hate mongering and your obsessive blame against random regular people.

"However, NIMBYs tend to be heavily engaged in local politics."

Sounds like your great ideas don't have the support that you think they have, if there are so few people even bothering to politically oppose the people that you hate so much.

Maybe you should focus on forming arguments that point out how people that are already living there will benefit personally from your ideas, instead of going the Hitler path and blaming so many problems of society on some (according to you) tiny minority. Seriously. Replace "NIMBY" with "Jew" in your last comment and see for yourself how you sound.

Anyway. Read this: https://www.self.inc/info/empty-homes/

And please reread the sentence several times: "There are 33 empty properties for each homeless person in the US"

penguincascadia3 years ago (4 edits)

No, earlier you said you support NIMBYs blocking the construction of new housing. That's the opposite of supporting new housing construction. Your last sentence about empty properties (that aren't actually ready for people where they need to live) also suggests that you don’t want new housing.

The blocking of new housing by NIMBYs has caused a shortfall in the housing supply. This is causing higher rents and more homelessness. I am pointing out that NIMBYs are responsible for the housing and homelessness crisis. Pointing that out is pointing out facts, not hate mongering. How is it hate mongering to point out a policy of blocking housing hurts ordinary people through high rents and homelessness?

Think about how many people are not politically engaged on the national level despite the huge stakes for everyone. Now take that to the local level where a lot of people don't even know who their city council person is. It's not surprising that much of the public is disengaged from local politics despite the stakes.

I only started posting about NIMBYs repeatedly after you kept repeatedly posting about one mention of them in one of my posts. I never even said NIMBYs were a tiny minority. I only claimed that the majority of people want more housing. It seems to me that you are the one who are obsessed with NIMBYs, not me.

And earlier you were criticizing the influence of corporations in our government. Corporate executives and major shareholders also make up a small minority of people in this country. How would you feel if someone came up to you after you criticized corporations and said "Replace corporations with Jews and see what you get in your speech"? That would be unfair to you and you doing that to me is unfair to me.

Most of my arguments in my posts here are about how building more housing will benefit people. I have already formed many arguments about the positive effects, which is the opposite of focusing on negatives.

I've already addressed this in an earlier post. Most vacant properties are between residents or are in places where there isn't much demand, like a distant rural town: https://ggwash.org/view/73234/vacant-houses-wont-solve-our-housing-crisis. So vacant units are not a solution to the housing crisis.

And we want more vacancies because it increases competition between landlords (thus lowering rents) and makes it easier for residents of a city to move to where they need to live. Think of it like a siding square puzzle- the more empty spaces are around, the easier it is to move a square to where you want it.

And the higher the vacancy rate is in a city, the lower its homelessness and rent burden rate is: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/ The cities with high rents have low vacancy rates.

We still need to build much more housing. There's no way around this need.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago

"I only started posting about NIMBYs repeatedly after you kept repeatedly posting about one mention of them in one of my posts."

The game is literally nothing else but propaganda against NIMBYs, so why should I not address the point?

"Please do not accuse people of being Hitler...for pointing out negative effects of NIMBY created policy. Please keep on topic."

Just take it as constructive criticism and change how you sound, cause your "That minority is overrepresented in (local) politics and controls it. They are the single cause for X and they are hurting everyone for decades. Everything would be fine, if only that tiny minority didn't exist." narrative leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

"How would you feel if someone came up to you after you criticized corporations and said "Replace corporations with Jews and see what you get in your speech"? That would be unfair to you and you doing that to me is unfair to me. "

Corporations aren't people. Introducing or increasing the vacancy tax isn't the same as your "just move to another place, if you want to keep your preferred lifestyle". Expelling some minority if they want to keep their lifestyle is conceptually the same as how Jews were offered to convert to Christianity or Islam (in the middle ages) or were expelled, if they wanted to keep their lifestyle.

So, no, I don't think you can turn that criticism on me. Also it wasn't my intention to call you names. Take it as a suggestion to reduce your fingerpointing against some minority and blaming them for problems which they didn't cause.

"I am pointing out that NIMBYs are responsible for the housing and homelessness crisis."

As I said before. I do not agree with your premise. Take an example like California where there is massive housing crisis. 50 years ago California was just half the population. The NIMBYs didn't import 20 million people that would obviously increase housing demand. So how can you blame them?

If some person watched too many Hollywood movies and thinks that they can simply walk into California to become rich and famous, but then end up a homeless meth addict on the streets, then it's personal responsibility. So don't blame NIMBYs for other people's terrible life choices. The only thing you can blame them for is not doing a better job in getting the growgrowgrow politicians out of office.

The extreme increase in demand is the problem. If you don't address the reasons of the demand, you'll never build yourself out of that situation without going the dystopian, cramped apartment skyscraper route. Also don't forget: An apartment skyscraper with 100 people per floor and 50 floors is just enough for 5000 people. (Look up how many undocumented migrants came into the US since Biden took office and how many migrants come in legally, then calculate how many of those 50 floors condos you need to build per day, if you want to solve the problem by simply building more). Also don't forget that this kind of grow in demand is despite the housing situation you are so concerned about. Simply doing the buildbuildbuild will simply increase the growth of demand.

Africa grew by 316 million in just the last 10 years. (US population in total: 332 million) So you can probably imagine what will happen, if you were in charge and simply started building and offering Downtown-Paris-quality apartments for everyone who wants to live in a nice place like good-weather California.

Your plan is simply and utterly unsustainable, when not putting some cap on demand growth. Especially when you simply go for the cities that are already full.

If you want to build more, then a good solution to the housing crisis is to decentralize. There is so much "middle-of-nowhere" in the US, where nobody lives for miles and you don't even have fertile land. Why not build new cities there or e.g. university campuses. Why not use tax-incentives to kickstart economic growth there. If e.g. some new university cities (plus hightech startups) were treated as self-sovereign regions, you wouldn't even have that much political oppositions from conservative areas, who'd otherwise be afraid of getting outvoted by a massive influx of (often) progressive young people. This would even increase the social/cultural density in the places where these students would otherwise have been as students rarely mingle with local population and don't start "rooting" themselves in local cultures as they anticipate to change locations several times.

The solution to the e.g. housing crisis among students is to have fewer students in overpopulated cities. Having less students in those areas would reduce housing cost for other people. Also this would have a good effect on democracy, if the newly built university cities were self-regulating regions as younger people are less risk-averse and are far more eager to try out radical, untested ideas in politics. I think this would add quite well to the "petri dishes of democracy" idea and would reduce the polarization of society.

penguincascadia3 years ago (1 edit)

As I said above, we're not talking about the game. I never mentioned the game in my original post. We're talking about how building new housing lowers housing prices and reduces homelessness.

No one here is claiming that if NIMBYs did not exist that all problems would be solved. I am only pointing out the fact that the housing shortage is the cause of high housing prices and most homelessness in America: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/

And we know that not building enough housing is the cause of the housing shortage. NIMBYs are blocking new housing construction. Therefore, NIMBYs are causing the housing and homelessness crisis. It is reasonable to point out that a political group of people are causing big issues with the policies they advocate.

Corporate executives and major shareholders are people, through, and someone coming up to you for criticizing corporate executives and saying "substitute Jews for executives and see what you get" would be unfair to you, and you doing this to me is unfair to me as well.

Religious minorities aren't hurting anyone when they practice their religion. NIMBYs blocking new housing construction are hurting ordinary people by driving up housing costs and forcing ordinary people into homelessness.

Plus, new housing construction does not hurt people's lifestyles. New housing is going on other people's land. No one is building on NIMBYs' land against their will. No one is moving in with NIMBYs against their will.

Nope, the criticism still applies to you. I mentioned NIMBYs once, and you keep bringing it up. You are the one who is obsessed with NIMBYs, not me.

I am only pointing out the fact that the housing shortage is the cause of high housing prices and most homelessness in America: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/

If a political grouping of people are advocating policies that have bad effects, it is reasonable to point that they are causing those bad effects.

People have the freedom of movement within America. They're going to come to California or other places for jobs, be with family, or for other reasons. No matter what, they will come anyway.

And even if they stayed in where in America they originally came from, a lack of housing caused by NIMBYs would drive up housing prices where they are. NIMBYs are still responsible for the housing crisis.

NIMBYs are still responsible for the housing crisis. New housing construction does not hurt people's lifestyles. New housing is going on other people's land. No one is building on NIMBYs' land against their will. No one is moving in with NIMBYs against their will. People moving into a city or state does not hurt the NIMBYs. Yet they advocate policies that would hurt other people through higher rents and more homelessness.

When people move, it's typically for employment or family related reasons. Movies don't have to do with it.

Homelessness is mostly caused by a lack of housing: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/

Drug use doesn't correlate with homelessness. West Virginia has high drug use yet a low homelessness rate.

As we already talked about earlier, many dense cities achieve density through five story and below buildings. Paris has few skyscrapers, yet has a density of twice New York City. And things like duplexes mean we can achieve density through even lower buildings. I have no idea where you are getting skyscrapers from, because we don't need them for density.

Population growth is not infinite. There is no infinite demand for housing.

Building more housing typically lowers prices, which is the opposite of what we would see if it created demand: https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-apartment-buildings-low-income-ar...

Again, the entire world is not moving to America.

Building new cities in the middle of nowhere is not a solution. Jobs and economic activities concentrate in existing major metro areas because of economies of scale. Stuff built in the middle of nowhere will not have that. We can see this even with the rise of remote working- remote workers still typically gravitate to existing metro areas.

People are already decentralizing by trying to move to other cities, but this is only spreading the housing crisis. Boise and Spokane, among many other cities, have seen increases in rents as people attempt to seek new housing there. NIMBYs are in those cities, too, and housing production because of that has not kept up. The solution to the housing and homelessness crisis is to build more housing where people need it.

Ravery (Ravery.net)3 years ago

I have no interest in continuing this discussion. Maybe read your own comments.
Just keep that "I mentioned NIMBYs once, and you keep bringing it up." when reading your comments, cause all your comments are nothing but "NIMBY are so bad, they hurt everyone, bad NIMBYs, it would be so great, we could solve housing crisis, if it wasn't for all the NIMBY's. Nimby nimby nimby!"

Then you say "we're not talking about the game." when your first comment was clearly a reply to my "too many vacant properties" comment, which is a criticism of the game that's just propaganda against NIMBYs.

Also you do nothing but glorifying your idea, dismissing all criticism, ignoring all problems, then simply dismiss all alternatives as "that won't work" out of hand, while obsessing over NIMBYs and keep hating against them again and again, nonstop.

Finally I'm completely fed up with your debate tactics. When I use "infinite" in a metaphorical sense and you keep arguing it as if it was literal, even though I have repeatedly provided hard numbers, then it's just annoying. Address the numbers or let it go, but don't keep repeating the deliberate literal/metaphorical "mixup", even though I've specified not only the numbers but even the timeframe. I don't even know whether your "No one here is claiming that if NIMBYs did not exist that all(!) problems would be solved." is yet another debate tactic that deliberately exaggerates something into absurdity just to dismiss a point out of hand, or if it's just rhetorical filler or whatever. Honestly: I don't even care at this point. I haven't had such a pointless discussion as this one for years.

So here are my final words: If the problem is so important to you and if you simply ignore/dismiss every other solution. And if you truly believe that the NIMBYs are vastly overrepresented in local politics, then start organizing people and outvote these NIMBYs that you hate so much. But keep in mind: If the (assumed) majority won't bother, then maybe adapt your worldview. Maybe far more people disagree with your vision (when it comes to actual changes in their turf) than you think.

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