Re:Stripe to donate $1M to California Yimby
by wpietri on Friday May 04, 2018 @12:52AM
(#16992273)
Not really. I understand that Econ 101 gives a lot of people a mystical belief in the power of supply and demand. But real economies are not governed by one or two simple equations. If they were, building more and bigger freeways would solve traffic problems. It doesn't. [1]
As an example, look at how many Bay Area companies over the past decades have vigorously opened offices elsewhere, often moving whole slices of their companies to lower-cost areas. They are quite explicit this is due to rising costs. If costs didn't rise, or were rising more slowly, we would have even more demand for housing here. Or, put differently, reasonable increases in supply might not actually help current residents. But they could well increase pain for current residents: more traffic, more gentrification, more destruction of existing buildings and neighborhoods.
So it may be less "poor understanding of certain shallow econ dogmas" and "a strong understanding of what they stand to lose, and how often they've lost at the hands of affluent white people who are sure they know how to fix things". Consider James Baldwin, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Abhj17kYU
As an example, look at how many Bay Area companies over the past decades have vigorously opened offices elsewhere, often moving whole slices of their companies to lower-cost areas. They are quite explicit this is due to rising costs. If costs didn't rise, or were rising more slowly, we would have even more demand for housing here. Or, put differently, reasonable increases in supply might not actually help current residents. But they could well increase pain for current residents: more traffic, more gentrification, more destruction of existing buildings and neighborhoods.
So it may be less "poor understanding of certain shallow econ dogmas" and "a strong understanding of what they stand to lose, and how often they've lost at the hands of affluent white people who are sure they know how to fix things". Consider James Baldwin, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Abhj17kYU
[1] See, e.g.: https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/