This is why local governments shouldn’t have control over housing rules. Local officials are elected by a small number of people and answer to an even smaller number when they’re in office. NIMBYs are very well organized and will always show up and the incentives local officials have all point to giving them what they want.
The key is to elect YIMBYs to the legislature and statewide offices. Newsom has been fairly good on housing, but I worry about who’s coming up next. That’s true not just on housing but also on things like automated vehicles. There have been efforts by the Teamsters to kill AVs and Newsom has vetoed them and I really hope his successor is like that.
Ugh... It feels like sometimes you really need to elect a good a-hole who is willing to make people unhappy to do the right thing. (To be fair, I would not be that person either).
While this is a great encapsulation of the mayors record, I want to challenge the point on fire-recovery. While climate change is undoubtedly a cause of the disaster, rebuilding fire-prone areas denser will simply reload the risk to the ENTIRE city and state that those areas pose — more people in harms way, more uninsurable homes and more people that need expensive, complex water infrastructure (and the maintenance to those areas).
I think real leadership would be challenging the rest of the city — much of which is not in high fire severity areas — to densify, smarter and safer. There is nowhere near the fire risk in Mid-Wilshire, Hancock Park, South LA, mid-Valley, compared to the Palisades. While this bill and transit/density generally will help us fight climate change and reduce the likelihood of these disasters, we’re living in a world where they’re not going away. We can’t pretend these areas are safe to develop — especially after this year — and courageous leadership would recognize that new reality, and work to densify the safer parts of the city
This is why local governments shouldn’t have control over housing rules. Local officials are elected by a small number of people and answer to an even smaller number when they’re in office. NIMBYs are very well organized and will always show up and the incentives local officials have all point to giving them what they want.
The key is to elect YIMBYs to the legislature and statewide offices. Newsom has been fairly good on housing, but I worry about who’s coming up next. That’s true not just on housing but also on things like automated vehicles. There have been efforts by the Teamsters to kill AVs and Newsom has vetoed them and I really hope his successor is like that.
Ugh... It feels like sometimes you really need to elect a good a-hole who is willing to make people unhappy to do the right thing. (To be fair, I would not be that person either).
While this is a great encapsulation of the mayors record, I want to challenge the point on fire-recovery. While climate change is undoubtedly a cause of the disaster, rebuilding fire-prone areas denser will simply reload the risk to the ENTIRE city and state that those areas pose — more people in harms way, more uninsurable homes and more people that need expensive, complex water infrastructure (and the maintenance to those areas).
I think real leadership would be challenging the rest of the city — much of which is not in high fire severity areas — to densify, smarter and safer. There is nowhere near the fire risk in Mid-Wilshire, Hancock Park, South LA, mid-Valley, compared to the Palisades. While this bill and transit/density generally will help us fight climate change and reduce the likelihood of these disasters, we’re living in a world where they’re not going away. We can’t pretend these areas are safe to develop — especially after this year — and courageous leadership would recognize that new reality, and work to densify the safer parts of the city