Re:California plans to turn the screws on NIMBY cities
by jeffbee on Sunday November 14, 2021 @10:38PM
(#29223395)
Cities are not entitled to drain away a lot of state or regional tax money to get all the transportation and water infrastructure they want, but then refuse to let anyone live there. That's plainly unfair. Berkeley today has the same population it had in 1950, but in the interim we built all the freeways and subways that Berkeley needed to have a booming job economy. In 1950 Berkeley had zero subway stations and in 2021 it has three subway stations. If Berkeley had wanted to remain at this population level forever, the time to have decided that was half a century ago, before all the investments.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:California plans to turn the screws on NIMBY cities
by andbberger on Sunday November 14, 2021 @11:45PM
(#29223802)
I agree with the sentiment but the Berkeley subway is not a great example. BART was planning to build above grade through Berkeley. Berkeley wanted a subway and had to make up the difference in cost.
Re:California plans to turn the screws on NIMBY cities
by throwawaysea on Sunday November 14, 2021 @11:09PM
(#29223585)
The state or regional tax money is the taxpayers’ money - including individual residents and other entities like companies or cities. It’s a rhetorical trick to pretend the money somehow belongs to the benevolent and powerful state, who forcefully collected this money in the first place. As such, I don’t think a city “owes” something back to the state. If the state had certain expectations, the time to have decided that was half a century ago, in the form of contractual obligations.