With that said, there are net-neutral transition strategies.

One of them is for the government to simply give all land owners money equal to the value of their land, but that might create inflation. Another might be instead to give all land owners a tax credit equal to the value of the land that can be spent on their land tax.

We can do this fast, we can do this slow. We can give aid, we can give tax credits, we can phase things in. If the LVT advocates, which includes many of the world's top economists, are right, then small transitions will quickly yield results that we can snowball into bigger transitions. The important aspect to me, is that eventually we reach a point where incentives align.

>>government to simply give all land owners money equal to the value of their land That is already in place - it's called eminent domain, and a SCOTUS case decided that it CAN be used for private development and not only for public works like roads. So, yes, govt could literally do a forced purchase of entire neighborhoods, and they would be required to pay current values, and then rebuild it at whatever density they want.

The other thing that could actually reduce complaints is to actually compensate the owners for loss of value. E.g., if single-family tracts have a value of $100 due to quality of living (wildlife, low traffic, open spaces, etc), and someone wants to put up massive apartment units in the middle, eliminating wildlife habitat, increasing traffic and consuming the open space, that will make the single-family unit's value decline to maybe $50 right next door, and $70 500 yards away, $90 1000 yds away, and $95 between the location and the major highway. Pay them the $50/$30/$10/$5 loss of their value, maybe in tranches when the project is approved, built, occupied. It can come out of some combination of the developer's or the town's budget.

That sort of appropriate compensation would go a long way towards reducing opposition.

What the tantrum-people ignore is that they want to live in the nice places, but giving them what they want is literally doing to destroy the very thing they want.

The FACT of the matter is that people who can't afford housing don't care about any of that.

Right. You DGAF about anything past the end of your own nose, and don't really want to do the work of solving problems, you just want to have your tantrums.

Saying "I want it, other people have it, so take it from them and give it to me" will not lead to a solution.

What leads to solutions is figuring out the ACTUAL problems, and then finding solutions that work in that space.

You say "can't afford housing until they are 45" - I bought my first house at 47, 40+ miles from the nearest metropolis, and I'm not whinging about it. Before that, I rented a similar distance away, and/in the city. Yes, commuting sucks, and so does city life. But I'm not all about taking stuff from other people to give it to me.

Where are you living now? What is so bad about it?

Have you ever actually read on the issue, attended a town meeting, voted in a local election, worked on a board? If you haven't, you're just another statistic of a young person who wants everything and does nothing. At least the guy in the article is actually thinking about the problem and trying to find a solution that isn't something a 5-year-old would spout.

I can also guarantee that if you got what you wanted, within a decade you would be yelling even louder to recreate what already exists - I've watched it happen.

Says the guy who LITERALLY proposes that he be compensated if dense housing is built on land that he doesn't fucking own because it messes up his morning walk.

I'm not asking for anything free. I'm asking that rightful owners of property be allowed to build on that property that they own without writing a random old man a massive check for ruining his morning walk.

Strategic advice for lurkers:

0. OP is common, and people like this are NEVER going to compromise. You have to crush them with pure electoral force. This is possible.

1. Attend a few meetings and do 1:1s with every seatholder, but don't get too bogged down. Either you have the votes or you don't, and this is an issue where many council people have huge personal financial vested interest. Figure out what they do for a living, any rental income streams they have, and how they got their seat.

2. If you have seats on your side, work with the most senior friendly councilperson to draft a plan of action. They'll know how the local law works and what there are likely votes for. Contrary to parent's cloud yelling, there is no one golden solution. The levers available and the impact those levers will have is highly contextual to your community.

3. If you don't have the seats, focus on flipping seats and crushing NIMBYs. Again, work with a friendly councilperson on a strategy and figure out if there's already organizing happening.

You likely have the votes; the key is turnout. One good strategy is to target renters, who tend to be pro-housing. Be smart and use your skills.

"Does the person who owns this property live there" is the question to ask, and there are many different ways of answering that question. You'll likely need a quiltwork approach, using public property records as your starting point. In many states you can obtain county-level voter rolls for free or for a small fee. Names and addresses.

Then canvas. Don't pitch, listen. Don't try to convince or debate; that's literally doing turnout work for t he other side. Just listen, ask a couple open ended questions, walk away, and at the sidewalk tick "yes" or "no" or "doesn't care". Find your base. Make sure they know how to vote for and make sure they vote.

Only start doing the hard work of convincing people to change their minds if you don't have the votes in your base. The good news is that you likely have the votes in your base. Look at numbers from prior elections. Turnout is low.

4. Likely don't run yourself; find a candidate who is passionate about YIMY and anti-rentier. But also embedded in the community. Churches, school groups, grew up in the area, etc. Well liked. It's possible you're a good candidate, but much more likely that you can find a better candidate who agrees with you on these key issues.

5. Regarding meeting attendance: stuff like "big groups at city council meetings" only works when you have the votes anyways, or when a councilperson doesn't really GAF, which makes it kind of silly. Especially for this issue where there are likely well-formed opinions and financial conflicts of interest. Don't waste your time if the votes aren't there. Until you have a majority of friendly councilpeople, ignore the city council boomer circus. (And it really is a total circus of retired nutjobs many weeks...) Ignore it. Quietly do the work of flipping seats. Turnout in local elections is low; getting even 20% of renters in your community to vote 100% pro-housing is likely enough to flip every at-large and a good number of precincts.

6. This will likely take multiple election cycles, but if you can find one cycle where all the seats you need line up, go all in. Spend money, spend time, don't squander a rare opportunity. Slating can be incredible effective, especially with a really good at-large candidate who can carry multiple precincts on his/her coattails.

This year is an especially good year because of massive rent increases. People are angry. Capitalize.

7. If you think this helpful, thank OP. Without the strange condescension I wouldn't have bothered typing this up.

I completely agree about increasing scrutiny on and taxation of owners for whom it is not their primary residence, e.g., "passive income" rentiers, full-time AirBNB hosts, etc.. These dramatically reduce available housing stock and increase costs (renters pay not only the full costs of the property but also the owner's profits).

That said, you are now squarely in the camp of restricting what people do with property that you do not own - exactly what you didn't like about my position.

This also brings us to the reality of why zoning was created.

It was specifically because people did NOT like the results of no zoning: anyone who owns the land can do whatever the fck they want with it.

This always creates externalities that impose costs on the neighbors, whether pollution, noise, light, safety issues, traffic, blight, or whatever. I watched a town where I lived which had eliminated zoning — with the methods you described — then found that all kinds of problems happen, and then they PUT BACK STRONGER ZONING.

Also look at another contradiction in your position. You say anyone should be able to build whatever the fck they want on their land. What that likely means is many more rental units. This will not substantially improve the lot of the renters, as it will be like the highway building paradox wherein adding more lanes brings more congestion; after a possible brief reduction for new competition, the rents won't decrease.

What you probably want is more actual purchasable housing stock at more reasonable prices, so be careful what you ask for. Just killing zoning will get more of what you don't want.

I also note that you are looking at a different kind of community than mine. I'm in a quasi-rural exurb (literally horses, cows, chickens on our street) with a town meeting and select-person govt, not a town/city council. The residents actually come to town meeting — often a multi-evening or all-day affair — and vote on almost everything, instead of electing town reps that make all the decisions. It is also a very substantial commute to the nearest city and zero public transport - for example, implementing low-income housing would force any owner to own a car, which puts them kind of out of the low-income category. So we may be talking about quite different ends of the issues.