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.
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.