Voters can't vote in municipalities where they don't live. So if you have a muni that has low destiny zoning regs, voters would have to move there first before having any say.

Related: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/25/nightmare-90-minute-s...

Real "local control" would let people commuting to Cupertino from Stockton decide zoning in Cuptertino.

> Real "local control" would let people commuting to Cupertino from Stockton decide zoning in Cuptertino.

That's a sham argument. That would be letting corporations who demand workers be on site decide zoning by way of commuters from other areas. Every local zoning/district must then bend to the will of temporary workers (temporary in the sense that their employment is less permanent than land ownership).

Local voters, through property ownership or residency is the only acceptable form of governance. Workers should be angered at employers who demand them to be on site, not zoning regulations.

So police, teachers, firefighters, gardeners, construction workers, tradesmen, who work in a community and commute from outside it shouldn't have a say in the policies of the community? Most bay area cities don't have any of those people living locally anymore.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/08/25/cops-living-in-r...

https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/03/08/school-district-con...

When your city cannot house the people required for its basic functioning, its government is broken.

I agree with you that it's a problem. The solution is to find equitable ways to provide housing to those workers in the city where they should have a stake. Providing commuters a voice is a (pardon my language) shitty hack and ignores the underlying issue (wealth/income inequality in a constrained geographic region).

I would not be against subsidized housing (both rentals and coops where you acquire ownership interest) that is means/income tested, to fend off speculators, foreign investors, and high income/net worth individuals from soaking up all the housing stock.

I'm confused both by your proposal, and your resistance to this one. Commuters and "people with less wealth who have a stake in the community" are exactly the same group of people. What other criteria would you use?

I think we're talking past each other. Mind if I email you to continue the discussion?

I am also a fan of how Germany (and to some extent, the Netherlands) handle their housing regulations to keep housing affordable.

Except for a few minor exceptions, America has nothing even remotely similar. The assumption is that owning your home/condo is the one and only way you are supposed to keep housing affordable in the US.

That assumption sort of / kind of worked for a while, back when there were heavy restrictions and regulations on how non-human and/or non-citizen entities could own and invest in housing, and when jobs/"demand" were somewhat-more-evenly distributed. But as soon as that was deregulated, the wheels came off the bus and it's been gotten steadily worse every year.

> Why do lower and middle class voters not vote for government regulation of housing?

They do, and in some respects, they already have this -- that's why they have some local control of zoning today. The regulatory control lower and middle class voters have is this local control of zoning that YIMBYs are trying to eliminate. Part of the problem is that "YIMBYs" are attacking that authority, by pretending anyone who is anti-YIMBY must be NIMBY. This is because it just so happens that the local control lower and middle class voters can use to promote public housing or "affordable" housing is the same control that wealthy voters can use to eliminate new housing entirely.

What sort of regulation do you have in mind? Directly restricting price won't make room for all the people who want to live here. It just changes how the (currently too rare) living space gets allocated.

Because the less skin you have in the game the less reason you have to go to the polls.

Not like it matters much anyway, politicians break their promised by ascending economic order to whom they were made.