If you think about a land owner in SF, they didn't really do anything to earn the value of the appreciation of their land. They might have improved their house but the land value went up because of the tech boom.
In such a scenario, at the state level, you would also reduce or eliminate other taxes like the income tax and sales tax.
Supported by such diverse economists as Paul Krugman, Milton Friedman, and Joseph Stiglitz.
Good overview here: https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2015/04/01/why-henry...
and
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/02/henry-georges-lan...
That doesn't you are wrong to look at it from a incentive point point-of-view. It's just that thinking in terms of cartels might not help you much.
Perhaps the cartel idea gives guidance here: power should be held at a level high enough that the electorate doesn't represent the interest of a cartel. (Since as we all know, special interests never have special access to the corridors of power at high level).
Batshit crazy. A Georgian land taxer who is just as batshit as all their fellow travellers.
The person that compares homeowners to a cartel was Paavo Monkkone. He is a professor of public policy and urban planning at UCLA.
Homeowners invest their own money, at significant interest rates, to obtain a place to live. They do of course have an interest in protecting that investment - with increased density comes increased crime, stressed parking, and other problems.
To call homeowners a "cartel" as if they're extorting their local community for protection money is inherently misleading.
For instance, Canada has a legal maple syrup cartel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Quebec_Maple_Syr...
Hold prices for their own suppliers artificially low by agreeing a price cap and refusing to pay more. They rely on suppliers having nowhere else to sell. e.g. British supermarkets have been repeatedly accused and sometimes IIRC convicted of operating a cartel to demand unfairly low prices from food producers.
Agree to split geographies so that there's effectively no competition to supply and each member of the cartel has local monopolies in all or most territory. This should be familiar to US folks who want High Speed Internet outside of a major city.
All agree never to offer a product which would hurt the overall market but be profitable for the first to offer it. Some have claimed the long delay in electric cars coming to market is evidence of this sort of cartel.
Cartels are illegal in much of the world (but ordinary laws don't apply to sovereign entities). If you're ever part of some big industry insider meeting and the lawyers make everybody agree not to talk about prices, future products or other commercial issues it's not because they're commercially sensitive, it's because your executives could do jail time if a court decides your group is a cartel.
Increased density does not increase crime. There's no evidence for this. There are very dense places with low crime and very low density place with lots of crime.
"stressed parking" is probably true, but part of the point of increased density is that you have less need for a car.
"other problems" is dog whistle.
I think I agree with you, but you are over simplifying the issue. Increased density does not increase crime per capita. It does increase crime per other measures of crime intensity (crime per square ft?). https://nycdatascience.com/blog/student-works/pressure-cooke...
http://theipti.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/covariance.pdf
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/13030.html (non-primary)
Damn right you're using violence to gain a profit.
When you violate zoning they don't ask nicely you know.
I've yet to hear a good reason why recursion is going to solve the problem instead of entrench it at the next level up.
It is implied (and sometimes expressed) that "NIMBY" outcomes in elections like this are illegitimate and not "true" democratic outcomes.
I reject this notion. I am very much in favor of urban in-fill in San Francisco and increased density in many parts of the city - but not at the expense of democratic processes.
SF has a very high foreigner population that cant vote. They are moslty renters. US renters also might not live enough time in the city to register, be politically active, or end up moving due to lifestyle or economic reasons. And of renters you will have those that have rent control, which end up in tandem with owners about de-regularization.
Im sure that if you put up a vote landowners and rent-controlled renters have a concentrated interest, and renters and foreigners dont have representation even if they are the majority. If you took all renters of SF in the last 6 years you might get a higher number than landowners but they cannot fight it politically.
So I adhere to the notion of unrepresentative democratic outcomes.
I think it's reasonable not to allow foreigners to vote on local political issues, just as we do on national ones. I wouldn't expect to have a say on political issues in countries I'm not a citizen of. Otherwise you don't have any skin in the game. You can just leave if you don't like the way things are going.
I think part of the problem is there aren't clear policy proposals to solve housing issues so it's hard to get people to support them. Plus the good land is already developed so you'd have to use eminent domain or something to build affordable housing.
That applies to local politics for everyone though, it's just as easy for a citizen to move to another city. I'm an immigrant to another country. I'm married, I have kids. I pay taxes. I can't just leave, I very much have skin in the game. Meanwhile the native youth are leaving in droves to bigger cities.
I like the system Sweden has - national elections are for citizens only, but local elections are open to anyone who lives in the municipality and is either (1) a Swedish or EU citizen, or (2) has lived in the country for 3 years
Countries have fought their independence fighting under the concept of "No Taxation without representation".
Reasonable or not I can assure you that foreigners pay the highest rents, have the least rent-control and less land in San Francisco.
I think we fundamentally disagree on whether foreigners should have a say in local politics, so we can't really have a productive conversation on this topic while we remain divided on that issue.
Not if you cop-out to Refugees, how many are they, 1000?
Rental prices increases affect everyone and affect every single foreigner migrating into the bay are. It also affects people from other states, and those also cannot vote. When the situation becomes untenable they leave the city.
The implementation of democracy can never be absolutely representative, anywhere, and in this situation that 'leaky implementation' is obvious.
People who pay rent and establish a residence should have a voice in their local(city) elections. Full Stop. Immigrants were allowed limited voting rights in State elections until the 1920's when very anti-immigrant sentiments lead to laws that prohibit that kind of voting.
But that does not make voting on housing representative of its population.
It's the other way around. A foreigner living in SF shouldn't be able to vote where they came from. They should in SF.
And by foreigner I mean non-citizen. I think if you want to influence policy you should have to have something at stake.
Are you in favor of not collecting taxes from foreigners then?
As of 2017, California has same-day voter registration. They can register on voting day.
Lets look at the big picture: if everyone that lived in san francisco in the last 10 years voted to build more or to stop building, what would be the resulting of such a vote?
I think the answer is obvious. And the fact that it isnt, is just lack of representation.
Thats why I devised that mental exercise: if you gathered up all the poeple that lived over 1 year in san francisco in the last 10 years, which one do you think is in the majority? pro-supply, con-supply?
I've never heard this before. Cite?
What's interesting about this situation is that there are likely many people that work in SF that would vote for expanding housing but cannot vote because they don't live in SF, presumably because they cannot afford to. The system reinforces itself.
> SF has a very high foreigner population that cant vote.
Remember, this is SF we're talking about. Long term they're not going to let a lack of citizenship stop someone from voting: https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526703128/non-citizens-will-s...
EDIT: 75% of rental units & 45% of total
[0]https://fancybeans.com/2018/01/24/65-57-35-how-much-seattle-... [1]http://blog.employmarket.com/2017/03/13/2016-metro-area-empl...
(Planning Commissions generally can make recommendations but the ultimate power lies in a City Council)
Nevermind the fact that the question here is about homelessness which is exacerbated when you lobby to mow down affordable SROs and rent controlled housing so some developers can rebuild luxury condos in their place.
How exactly will that help the homelessness problem?
This is because they build housing. San Francisco, London, New York, and Seattle all don't build housing and prices go up. [2]
If housing were easier to build people would build more affordable housing. No developer cares if they build expensive housing or affordable housing, they are maximizing return on investment. Turning a 1 story house into a 3 story house for a 30% return makes developers just as happy as developing 20 luxury condos for a 30% return.
And even those luxury condos provide housing for people who would otherwise buy old condos and renovate them. As long as the housing is more dense and there is more of it, prices will come down.
[1] https://resources.realestate.co.jp/buy/average-rent-in-japan...
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3...
https://m.fang.com/zf/sz/AGT_206834195.html?listtype=1&lists...
And rent control actually leads to shortages as mobility is reduced because of people staying in places longer than they would have otherwise. It also disincentivizes creation of new housing.
Greater supply is needed. That’s the bottom line.
Every time I hear "we need to protect poor from eviction by evil tech workers" I want to scream.
Yeah sure.. tech workers who make 150k+ are dreaming about moving in a shitty house in East Bay.
Boulding more affordable housing looks great in a political ad, but does not do shit to resolve the crisis