You say that but the vast majority of housing being built in CA is "luxury" accommodations. Luxury homes, luxury apartments, luxury condos. Nothing else justifies the cost of land, the developers say, and hence nothing else gets built. Meanwhile short-term rentals are cannibalizing existing housing stock. I was born here, and like hell would I tolerate some random fuck telling me I'm not entitled to live here.

You're saying the only people entitled to live on desirable land are wealthy assholes coming from afar? "I'm sorry, the only place you're entitled to live at your income level is that shithole next to the meatpacking/chemical/whatever plant. Why are you complaining? You can live with all your other equally-abled friends!"

This is how you create ghettos.

> You're saying the only people entitled to live on desirable land are wealthy assholes coming from afar?

Rich or poor, asshole or not asshole: No one is entitled to live anywhere.

There is only a market price. That's all.

Means is a form of entitlement. Free market economics creates massive inequality. That's the whole issue at stake here.

But the other side of the argument is that if somebody worked hard, and obtained monies, they should be able choose where to live using said monies. If i found out that wealth gained means nothing, and that the 'mob' penalizes wealth, then people would tend to create less wealth. Would society be worse off then?

I don't know but Europe seems to be doing OK

But this is self-contradictory. When you say "there is only a market price" you are saying that those with money are entitled.

But the money obtained through work has a meaning. "Entitled" means to demand without having first "worked" to obtain the necessary resources for said demand.

Welcome to exactly what's wrong with the system! We view somewhere to live as something you have to save for, work for, invest in when it should be a fundamental right.

What's wrong with the housing market is that a housing market actually exists. We should be working to provide food, housing and comfort for all people as a matter of course, not to make rich capitalists who already own most of the wealth on the planet even richer.

Unless you consider vast swathes of America “ghetto”, there are other places in the country where salaries vs cost of living is much better.

"If you don't like it leave." People who say that might as well be telling somebody in Venezuela if they don't like it there try the USA. Most people can't just move to another developed country. They don't have the means and/or don't the meet the visa criteria.

There are 49 other states besides California.

Because we make lots of policies that make housing hard to build in the first place.

If you don't think you need a better solution then you have to admit you need a better argument; it seems like a lot of voters disagree with you.

> it seems like a lot of voters disagree with you.

I don't know man, appealing to the authority of the collective wisdom of the voters seems like a pretty shaky foundation on which to base an argument these days.

The parent comment was “if you want this policy, tough shit move to Europe”. If the policy is popular here, why doesn’t parent comment move?

> The parent comment was “if you want this policy, tough shit move to Europe”. If the policy is popular here, why doesn’t parent comment move?

If you want rent control, I'm saying you should go elsewhere.

If you are against rent control, my comment did not imply what you should or shouldn't do.

> why doesn’t parent comment move?

you'd probably get a better answer if you were to ask the person who made that comment.

A lot of existing policies favor the existing owners of the real estate (not even the renters)

"Not everyone is entitled to live where they want" is like... OK sure. But only land owners used to be able to vote. It makes a lot of sense to help out renters through policies that might harm owners.

This cuts both ways. Why should you or anyone else be able to access this housing, for example?

But beyond that, local residents set local policy so it's obvious why these policies are in place.

Because people invest big chunks of their lives in communities. I realize that many tech workers in SF are normally ignorant of the lives of the people around them though.

> Not everyone is entitled to live where they want

whilst that is true, society should band together in such a way as to make it possible to create cheap shelter for everybody (as an option, those who wants to live more luxuriousy should be able to if they have the means).

Rent control isn't really achieving it though, and only distorts the market.

But you and I are, right?

What entitles anyone to own land in the first place?

What entitles the market to exist?

> entitles anyone to own land in the first place?

by fiat, land can be owned.

The first land was obtained through war and conquest (from native american indians). Those who worked and produced wealth used it to purchase the land from the crown (or whatever gov't that did the conquering).

If you want to change this, you either must convince everybody (including existing land owners) that your system is better. Or, raise an army, and take it by force (as what was originally done to the native american indians).

Those were rhetorical questions.

Like you said, through our system of democracy, we _allow_ the markets to exist in a particular form. We _allow_ the government to administer force to protect the peoples' ownership of private property. None of this is a given, and pretending everyone has a moral imperative to participate in the market does not follow.

If people in a region decide, by democratic means, they want to change the way the market functions, there is nothing implying they should 'get out'. It is fully within their rights.