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Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by opportune on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @12:52PM (#27450193)
This is kind of textbook NIMBY although it is possible taking away the commercial zoning could make the area too light on commercial activity.

But one of the main contributors to housing shortages is that areas have been overly permissive with commercial zoning (since they don’t have residents, city expenditure is low) which causes imbalances in the amount of jobs:people in an area. That in turn not only increases prices but increases traffic as some portion of people must be commuting from afar to fill those jobs.

Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by bangoimby on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @03:11PM (#27451835)
Bingo. Balance is way more important than density. It should be mandated by state law. Doesn't need to be per-city; you could have a system to trade jobs vs housing with neighboring cities or something.

A major irony is that California is approaching this all wrong. The "let Scott Wiener build whatever he wants" laws are in some cases being used to make the problem worse. See: Vallco Mall redevelopment plan, more jobs than housing.