The real issue with NIMBYs is how restrictive zoning is. Sure, you can build anything you want if it conforms, but good luck getting it to conform. For example, single-family home neighborhoods are pretty much stuck that way. Want a nice, compact apartment building? Or maybe even a fourplex? Good luck. In my reasonably-sized college town, upzoning happens once PER DECADE.

This is the affordable housing crisis at its core, and it’s remarkably procedural and boring. People are unable to afford homes and apartments because of simple tedium that takes place in beige board rooms at 11:00 PM on a Monday (i.e. local politics).

Yeah, zoning in the US tends to be single use, which prevents most buildings from being built in most places. I recently read a fantastic blog post on how zoning works in Japan, where uses are instead ranked by how much of a "nuisance" they are, and zones have a maximum nuisance level. Anything at or below that level can be constructed in that zone.

http://devonzuegel.com/post/north-american-vs-japanese-zonin...

What is preventing companies from moving to less expensive cities? By the free market logic, it should decrease demand/rent in hot cities, and provide these companies more affordable workers.

At which point is the housing pressure strong enough so that jobs start moving elsewhere, and market effects between cities or state come into play (i.e. if a city "choose" to limit housing it will limit it's economic potential compared to others)?

Those cities also have the same restrictive zoning laws, preventing new office buildings and housing just like the expensive cities.

Many American cities are experiencing price increases out of line with prevailing wages to the point that the median income cannot afford the median house. And we're not talking NYC and SF;think Nashville.

Furthermore, talent is concentrated in a few areas. A software firm in Nome, Alaska will have a harder time hiring than one in New York. Infrastructure like airports keeps businesses in hubs. Ports make goods cheap to ship. Having large numbers of local customers helps too

In Silicon Valley the dynamic is different, because it’s mostly global headquarters full of upper management and highly paid engineers. Unlike low-wage employees in regional offices, those people are not considered disposable, and aren’t willing to relocate on a whim. So relocating headquarters to another city or state is extremely hard for large companies.

Source: I rent in one of these atrocities.

This free for all world sounds downright scary.

And then so many people in Seattle want to complain about plunging affordability.

"Seattle homeowners have vigorously fought changes to zoning laws that would increase density on the grounds that it would alter the character of neighborhoods filled with picturesque (if small) craftsman-style bungalows."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-30/how-big-t...

So you’re either arguing for zoning to remain static to maintain the property rights of surrounding owners, or someone’s getting screwed when zoning changes.

The equitable solution would be to compensate surrounding owners for their property losing value or them losing enjoyment when zoning changes (similar to eminent domain), but if that makes zoning changes prohibitively expensive (or owners turn down the offer entirely), we’re back to square one. Someone is losing something.

I would rather try to cure cancer than fix land use and housing in California.

They already get compensated in the form of lower taxes. Just like how if the neighbors build something that increases their property value, they need to pay more in taxes.

Big fan of FWD:Everyone by the way, great product.

And thanks! I've been writing regex ten hours a day for the last six weeks to fix thread parsing issues in weird corner cases, we'll have some improvements to the site that will be more visible in the next couple months though.

So we should use public money to compensate private property owners for making a bad gamble, at the expense of people who need a place to live. I’m sorry, but why is owning property a guarantee of a return on your investment? Should we compensate people who hold stock in coal companies when we regulate the coal industry too?

Them the breaks of real estate law and it’s English origins, and while I won’t dissuade you from action, know that it will take decades before you see meaningful change. Plan accordingly.

Chances are that a 50 story building isn't going next to a single family home without serious changes to the entire block. More likely, people want to build multi-families which are not going to ruin your sunlight. Additionally, changing all of this takes a lot of time, just because zoning may be relaxed doesn't mean overnight its going to turn in to Manhattan or Hong Kong as opposed to Paris which largely is ~6 stories and not particularly known for being a hellhole.

It is immoral to always in favor of the people lucky enough to have bought at the right time. Surely it is a difficult balance, but chances are your home has appreciated enough to give you a lot of options too.

Furthermore, when you buy a house, you are a taking a risk. You're making an investment. I don't see why the rest of the world should be bending over backwards and living in stasis to protect your investment. If you want absolute control over what happens on your block, buy your block.

You're treating all real estate as if it's the same, but the world is more complex than that. We're talking about dense metro areas, where development primarily happens to support growing populations and an influx of businesses. How many expensive homes in downtown SF have become worthless because of industrial ventures nearby? Far, far, far less than have become extremely valuable, if any. This isn't just some theory on paper.

In short there are a lot of reasons to want to regulate what people build.

It's more complicated than Sim City ever was.

jzymbaluk said "Why shouldn't land owners be able to build whatever they want on their own property? It's not your backyard, it's your neighbors property" which screams "No zoning" to me.

Then "saagarjha" said "As long as they follow the noise and disturbance ordinances, then sure." which screams "the market will naturally balance homeowner satisfaction with factories/businesses".

I responded with "Are you suggesting that nightclubs should be banned altogether? If not, then where do you suggest to put them since they are inherently noisy?" as without zoning, homeowners, businesses, and factories could be right next to each other.

I was responding to (middle OP?) "Why shouldn't land owners be able to build whatever they want on their own property? It's not your backyard, it's your neighbors property" and "As long as they follow the noise and disturbance ordinances, then sure."

Those former seems to suggest getting rid of zoning altogether which would cause horrible negative externalities IMO. The latter assumes noise disturbances would somehow balance the market which I highly doubt.

Having laws about quiet times and public smells prevents the nightclub and abbattoir from locating there without blocking usages.

And let’s not be flippant. Nobody wants the ability to build anything anywhere, but it’s eaually absurd to not build much of anything at all. You can have density and affordable housing and a good quality of life; lots of cities do it already!

You can't live in a happy, healthy community without giving up a little bit of control in favour of the common good.

In other words, you are free to build whatever you want on your own property, as long as its effects don't negatively impact the value of mine. (I personally will never block developments, but I think I would have a right to be pissed off as hell if something like that happened, still.)

That is nowhere near a good enough rule. What if I buy commercial retail property in a bustling district, but over a few years the bustling industry shifts half a mile away, leaving my district with less foot traffic and thus negatively impacting the value of my property? Have those developers harmed me in a way that should be illegal?

You may be tempted to say “well, no, obviously that’s different.” And indeed, it is obviously different. But the challenge is coming up with a rule that actually works without needing you or someone to decide on a case by case basis what is “obviously” an exception.

Hence the stalemate I guess.

Second, it’s frustrating that people only think of themselves. “What about my view?” What about the hundreds or thousands of people who can’t live near their jobs or their kids’ schools because of your precious view? What about the people who will be forced to drive in and get stuck in traffic, people who probably can’t bike because they’re forced to live in another town only reachable by a long highway trip? What about the people who are forced to pay higher and higher rents because everyone blocks development everywhere in the city?

Screw your view, honestly.

However, think about how you'd feel if you bought a house and spent most of your life savings on it (like most are forced to), only to find that it drops in value dramatically putting you underwater on the payments. It's not just about their "view". They paid for amenities which (whether we like it or not) include the view and environment.

I don't even have a solution - but it's not so simple as "give up your view so more people can live near their jobs".

That means you'll pay less for your property, and you get to enjoy your view for as long as it lasts, and keep some money in your pocket.

If on the other hand you do have all sorts of rights to prevent anyone from building out your view then that same house will cost you a lot more - perhaps more than you'll be able to afford.

Either of these situations seems fair, because you know the rules in advance.

Crappy situations arise when the rules are not clear. In that case, you don't really know how much you should pay for that house, and you may suffer immense angst when your view disappears.

Also, I don’t think people’s home values drop all that dramatically when new housing is built. We’ve been putting this off for decades, but we’ve also been artificially inflating housing prices. Maybe your tiny bungalow ISN’T actually worth $500,000. Maybe decades of bad local policy have ballooned the price of your house at the expense of others.

And even so, even if building housing makes your house decrease in value, that’s still not a good reason to prevent development. I care much more they cities are healthy and plentiful housing than I do about some Boomers who got lucky with when they bought into the real estate market.

The solution is actually remarkably simple: build more housing. We did it before; plenty of other countries with more sensible zoning laws do it. There aren’t enough places for people to live. We can either start killing people, or we can put up some walls. Personally, I’m a fan of buildings.

Edit: typos (phone)

The types of people the parent is describing don't buy real estate as an investment. They buy it as an asset. And for most Americans, their house is their most valuable asset.

So can you not spare a shred of sympathy that they are hyper-conscious about what happens to the value of that asset?

Of course I can. My sympathy goes both ways.

>> (Also, building housing doesn’t just tank the value of your home, trust me.)

I'm not talking about simply increasing the supply of housing. The specific example we are discussing is a new skyscraper blocking the view from an existing one.

I also think it's really easy to say "sorry, you fucked up when you spent all your money on a house" if it's someone else. These aren't all "Boomers who got lucky" - they are also millennials buying their houses today at current rates.

I think we have to have more empathy for these people if we want to make progress.

Remember, this all rests on the assumption that building housing necessarily depresses property values, and that isn’t a guarantee. You can tell because it goes further than that. It’s hard to build any housing at all. My city had about 100,000 people in it. I know some smart urban planners and they estimate it would take about 20,000 to 30,000 new units to stabilize our rental market. Not drive prices down, just stabilize. But we can’t even build ONE apartment building, let alone tens of thousands of units. Even if more housing would drive property values down (which it doesn’t necessarily), it would take so much housing before it ever got to that point.

And once again, we can have empathy and we can build housing. I promise one or two apartment buildings isn’t going to ruin grandma and grandpa’s home value. I promise.

I have a right to what I pay for. This is simply inarguable.

In most highrises, the view tends to make up a significant portion of the value. This is why units become more expensive the higher up they are: the view is better from a higher altitude.

So essentially, when a developer comes and builds another highrise next door, they are destroying a big part of the value of the original highrise units.

So, if I have a right to what I pay for, and someone is doing something to negatively affect that, the NIMBY argument becomes rather straight-forward.

(Again, these aren't my actual views. I'm simply saying I can sympathize with NIMBYs, even though I despise them.)

Seriously, wtf.

This coffee shop apparently meets all current zoning rules, though the employees may need to be somewhat less scantily-clad than the ones working at other locations. Regardless, this shows one way in which zoning rules don't always predict developments that neighbors might reasonably want to avoid.

1: https://abc7news.com/business/lingerie-bikini-clad-baristas-...

EDIT: Thanks for downvoting, but perhaps a response would be more productive?

I should also note that this is somewhat closer to a strip club than a Hooters, since the attire is lingerie, not tight shirts. Basically, they're falling somewhere between two things that were known to exist (strip clubs and Hooters) when the rules were presumably made. In the future, I'm sure towns around here will make rules that are more restrictive, citing this as an example of what happens when you leave more room.

a) Fix the zoning rules

b) Make everybody ask the city council and all their neighbors for permission for every little thing, every time

(a) is at least trying to make an even playing field for everyone. The rules are for everybody, and everybody has to follow them, regardless of political connections or money or lawyering, etc. At least in theory.

With (b), you start by trying to get an exception carved out for yourself, so in practice only those with the most patience, money, lawyers, political connections, etc. will be able to get what they want, and everybody else gets the Kafka treatment.

For background, I live in a neighborhood where the property sizes are much much smaller than the rest of the zoned area. So we have to get exceptions for many things because the rules were written for properties that are 10x to 50x the size. I wish that rules could be written to cover every possible eventuality, and I personally feel the pain because they cannot (I have to pay for every exception and variance in the approval process). So having seen how rules are blunt instruments, I have some sympathy for folks who are caught up in the process.

Emphasis mine.

Business should be able to operate freely, but they should not be able to break the law until someone catches them.

The only reason we're here arguing about this is companies like Bird chose to ask for forgiveness rather than permission in the past.

What they say "wtf, no?" to is companies treating public good and spaces like sidewalks as something they can just offload all of their costs onto, without ever asking permission.

Look at the Boston area with Bird right now. Bird just started dumping their scooters on sidewalks, got asked to stop by the towns, got told to stop by the towns, and then finally stopped only because the towns were confiscating all of the litter Bird left around and the number of locals who started destroying the scooters because they were abandoned property and none of them took lightly to companies dumping their shit on public grounds.

There is an argument to be made about how their is corruption in governments and they will push back on startups even though they are better for society, or how regulations strangle change and smaller firms. That argument doesn't apply to companies worth billions like Uber or Bird. They are just trying to break the law and offload costs to society, and then trying to claim it's disruption so they can tap into that feeling of doing good and changing the world that SV used to have 15 years ago

The absolute best outcome for Bird would have been the city saying "you can put them in designated scooter areas, and they have to be docked in designated scooter areas". And that would have turned them into just another e-bike: utterly useless and used by no-one.

Now, there's absolutely a reasonable conversation to be had about corporate over-reach, responsibility, and externalities here. However, let's not pretend that this could realistically have been accomplished any other way.

That would have gotten a no, but ”we would like to do an experiment decreasing road congestion” could have gotten them a yes _and_ a subsidy for running the experiment.

And yes, that “yes” would have had strings attached, even if it weren’t subsidized, but that’s normal for anthingmyhea affects shared space. If a company goes to the city and says “we would like to park our cars on the street instead of on our expensive parking lot” or “we would like to semi-permanently occupy the space in front of or shops”, would you expect the city to say “yes”, too?

Fat VC dollars come when they think you’ll dominate the world of scooters and put them everywhere. If you spend some of those millions fighting city governments so be it. Bribe them, make them fail elections, find loopholes, extend court trials forever. This companies have almost an unlimited supply of money.

Yes? I'd assume it would take finding someone friendly who works for the city, getting them interested in the concept, and getting their help and support in navigating the process, but yes, I'd absolutely expect the city to say "sure", maybe "sure, with caveats". Hell, maybe the city folks could find a way to finance half your deployment with taxpayer money. It's not like city administration exists only to sit on their collective butt and default-deny every request.

Were I only following the local media and other people's opinion on our city, I'd still be believing it's all bunch of busybodies led serving a no-good city president. But, as a part of leading a local Hackerspace, I ended up involved in city-NGO cooperation space. I've interacted with both city officials and private organizations trying to run publicly beneficial projects in the city, and it turns out my city is really willing to help, to partner, to support.

Of course, the local and national politics sometimes leak through and create issues, so it's not all roses. But I left the space with the impression that one only has to try to start a friendly conversation, and there's plenty of city officials, with budgets behind them, willing to cooperate with your new endeavour.

EDIT: Oh, and yes, there are procedures. Things move much slower than you expect, and if you're trying to get some of the city money for the project, you end up organizing public consultations and preparing recommendation reports to the city, and doing other busywork that may seem, or even be, pointless in the case of your project. It can be frustrating.

If it's risky proposition, then yes, it's better to refuse.

If he accepts it and things go wrong, it'll be blamed on him, and he might get kicked out.

If he refuses, the worst that could happen is it could succeed somewhere else. In which case, he could then reconsider.

The only time where it makes sense to accept is when he's desperate and needs to shake things up, or there are enough kickbacks to make it worthwhile.

Yes. The politicians already do this all the time, every time a development company wants to turn a vacant lot or McDonald's into an apartment building even though that building meets all the codes and standards.

It turns out that politics is often times negative sum, and whatever good thing you are doing will stopped, merely because you havent given them their cut.

When you meet an asshole you've met an asshole. When you meet assholes all day, you're probably the asshole. These dockless companies are complaining about everyone's reaction to them, which is making me think they might just be assholes

Before the scooters littered the city, the companies talked to SFMTA, and SFMTA said they were drafting up regulations to govern the scooters prior to giving permission.

The companies went ahead and littered the city with them anyway, without permission.

Claiming that breaking the rules is what led to the SFMTA coming up with regulations to allow scooters is just plain wrong. They were working on them already. The companies just got greedy and figured it was a first-mover market and that they'd be able to pull an Uber and continue operating despite breaking the rules.

If they'd asked for permission before anyone had heard of the idea of a scooter company, SFMTA would have ignored the request.

Do you genuinely think it's good for society when businesses do this?

In then end I guess I don't care because I truly believe the rules are backwards and protecting cars above any useful alternatives that may represent a useful future for green sustainable urban transportation.

I should also say, look below[0]. Bird's application was terrible . Scoot on the other hand set an example for a great application to a government body for a resource of some kind, I can compare it to my experience for writing grants.

I can imagine some class on professional writing contrasting these very two applications as examples of what not to do and what to do when applying for something from a government. After scanning both, I'm pretty much convinced the city chose the applications based on the quality and substance behind each application, not based on anything else.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17882982

The free market has worked out much better. Uber/Lyft have to provide competitive service at a low price. If they stop doing this, they too will be replaced.

It's like everyone who preaches this line knows so little history or wants people to forget[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_(horse)

In most situations, a process that allows for more freedom is the solution. I do not count corporations as people and as far as I'm concerned, they should be required to be far more open about operations than they are currently. I'm also not a fan of IP laws generally speaking and think they should all be scaled back.

I don't mind ubers quickly stopping to drop someone off on a non-separated bike lane as long as they don't cut people off and signal and merge safely. I'm happy to wait behind them or merge around just like a car would had they stopped in the main traffic lane. We can share the infrastructure, just don't leave your car in the bike lane!

Why's that ok? You are a private individual. You are using public space for private benefit, instead of , I don't know, letting the needy homeless use it.

So-called "black" cars where passengers arranged transportation in advance were governed differently, and required no licensing or a different and more permissive kind of licensing. Black car services were already widely available in many cities from lots of different companies, often independent owner/operators - it's just that no one had provided a service that worked across many different cities and was available conveniently as an app.

I won't claim that Uber and Lyft broke no laws, because there are a lot of jurisdictions in the world, and I don't know the laws of all of them, but many cities regular taxies and black cars very differently.

Edit: Why the downvotes? Am I wrong? Evidence would be appreciated.

Lots of just causes broke unjust laws.

This sort of retaliatory "shit list", constructed without due process, from which a company might only be able to extricate themselves by "kissing the ring" of local politicos/bureaucrats, is a recipe for inefficiency and corruption.

I also don't think the "litter" charge against the initial scooter deployments is correct, anyway, for reasons I outlined in a prior thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17268697

There is very little traffic on sidewalks and using it for pedestrians and scooters and bicycles is much better. Especially considering that cyclists can pause or go around pedestrians when necessary.

Having an absolute law rather than an adaptive is not useful to the community.

But I don’t think scooters parked in the sidewalk apply to me very much. If we’re moving, they or I move around each other.

lol. i guess the plebs who can't afford uber don't count as people. SF sidewalks have seem pretty packed to me whenever I am there.

In contrast to Bird, Scoot hasn't attracted that much criticism in SF despite being a pretty similar service.

You tell me if you see a scooter on the sidewalk if that strikes you as the same as people disposing of trash on the sidewalk: loose papers, cigarette butts, plastic bags, etc.

I get what you're saying for the sake of argument, but littering is a disgusting act that makes most people feel like their city is unclean.

This whole "hands off" approach has proven a failure many times,. Look at how Uber and Lyft are exploiting their drivers, which end up working below minimum wage and 100% on own risk - in the big scheme/long term these have no insurance, no pension benefits, might lose everything through an accident, and will mostly end up dependent on handouts.

In some cities bike rental schemes failed and the city is left to clean up broken bikes, stations, etc once the provider disappears. Sure, it was easy to get in, but the taxpayer foots the bill.

Yes, an application process makes things a bit more intransparent and slow, but (if done well) it also assures that the average citizen is not left holding the sticky end.

Undocked transportation? I think that without some formal approval it would be within the cities right to confiscate items left on the public right-of-way and auction it off to the highest bidder.

You can't even legally leave garbage out for collection (in unapproved containers) except for certain days.

Actually, if the city went after them as moving vehicles they would be collected by the towers in hours.

If you were going to claim that our allocation of city resources to parking is excessive, I'd agree, but you can't reasonably claim that parking a car there isn't using the space for it's intended purpose.

It seems like if you want to come up with a permit process and rules, rather than just making them all up at once you'd grant permission to a small group for a limited period to figure out what rules make sense, then write the rules, then open up the permitting process.

When selecting the pilot group it also makes sense to try to find partners that are likely to co-operate and be responsive to your requirements rather than companies with long histories of completely ignoring local laws.

You're right that SF has a history of abusing permits in the interest of Nimby-ism -- see the 'war on fun' for one example -- so I do agree it could all turn out terribly in the end, but that doesn't make this an unreasonable start.

What you're describing might be possible for a mature business category.

The free market doesn't always magically work.

But maybe in another sense, San Francisco is a product, and the feature it's selling includes rampant overregulation.

If that's not a good business model, another city can step up and offer better incentives. And people can move there. There are many nice cities and towns in the US. If you insist on living on the dirty tip of a tiny overcrowded peninsula, that's a choice.

You're trying to regulate San Francisco's right to regulate.

GDP is just a measure for a particular system. I could think of several more direct measures than GDP without trying very hard, for instance quality of life, cost of living, and overall happiness.

The problem is that the named companies already have shown their willingness to use their VC backed resources to stomp over local regulation.

These companies were jerks who basically said "Nya. Nya. We're too powerful, you can't regulate us. <middle finger>"

To which SF replied: "Nya. Nya. Yes we can. No permits for you and now we can fine the snot out of you if you disregard us."

Is that the type of system you are proposing here ?

Can we at a minimum focus on practical participants and outcomes when debating policy?

With "shall-issue" rules there is no one in city government to bribe and/or make special deals with.

That's not how SF likes to operate.