This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Are you sure?
You keep doing this thing where you want to school ignorant Americans on how the world is, and act like you know about a whole bunch of things that... well, let me just say if you really do have deep knowledge about all these subjects and their peculiarities in all these different places, my hat is off too you, and I really respect you.
I lived in a bunch of European cities, and have indeed noticed that the housing prices are too damn high. What I don't know is whether this issue is caused by NIMBY. I have no knowledge of the ins-and outs of real estate development in any of the places I lived in. As far as I can tell there's a historical center (and I mean actually historical) in most cities that they like to preserve, and otherwise there isn't much of a fuss to build anywhere else. Definitely none of the car-centrism, or allergy to "density" that the YIMBY's love to complain about.
This is "doomed because not following my preferred policy", because calling it "NIMBY" implies the solution is "just build more, bro", when it's an open question how affordable that would be, and how much it would even help in the face of the current immigration numbers.
The only time I hear a connection between immigration and house prices is in a positive context, from home owners: ‘with all these immigrants, the prices can’t go down!’.
It’s not : We have immigration => we should build more to meet the demand.
It’s : We need high prices, therefore unmet demand => let’s build nothing and have immigration on top of it.
Instead of solving one problem, homeowners’ financial incentives are creating two.
I know for a fact there’s a shit ton of red tape, plus the greens consider any new constructible land to be ‘a loss for nature’.
You hearing it only as a positive is not surprising, as anything else is considered crass in polite society.
In any case I don't know how much of it can be laid on the feet of homeowners. Most people I know fret more about their mortgage rates than the value of the home they bought, haven't really heard anyone complaining about new construction, and I definitely haven't seen homeowner friends lobby for more immigration.
Well, like I said, I don't know much about this so I'm not gonna fight about it too hard.
You're saying you don’t see the evidence of european nimbyism. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the continent known for regulations and environment protections has three times the housing price to income ratio of the country with the more libertarian bent. We don’t have the yimby/nimby distinction here because it’s all nimby, all the time, to a level that an american couldn’t comprehend. In my ~10,000 pop. home village they routinely raze perfectly good, newish houses to replace them with 3-story, 6-small-apartments buildings. It's nuts the wealth that gets destroyed because people can't get a building license.
Huh? Am I missing something, or is that YIMBY, rather than NIMBY?
P.S.: Now that you mention it, I saw the same thing happen in one of the towns I lived.
Nimby because it's a village, it's surrounded by empty fields. A building license in a village should not be worth 300k euros (the destroyed house).
Another thing I remember: In my grandparent's village (pop 2000, in the middle of nowhere), the one time in their life where they felt rich was when the village council declared some of their land constructible, which they immediately sold for like 100k, when it was worth almost nothing before.
From what I understand, the kind of things that American YIMBY's complain about, is that you are not even allowed to demolish a house and replace it with a flat. Maybe they have more flexibility in rural areas.
Generally, rural areas are much easier to work with for several reasons. First, outside of incorporated municipalities, you generally only have to worry about permitting from the town or county, which generally are set up to default allow. Farmland is not especially valuable, and even inside a municipality or village, you have far fewer people to have to negotiate with, and who are generally starving for any kind of economic growth.
There are exceptions, of course. One is areas in which the state or federal government owns most of the land. In that case, your development will probably be confined to municipalities who can then afford to be a lot pickier about what they allow. Another is areas that are already wealthy and have little need or interest in further economic growth, like, say, Sedona. They will show a lot more resistance to changes that alter the makeup or vibe of the area. Combine the two and you get places like Aspen, well-established as a playground for the wealthy, with a moratorium on all new residential construction and renovation, and surrounded by unbuildable, wild, federally protected land.
More options
Context Copy link
Let's summon the expert: What's the situation like in american rural areas, oh @grendel-khan ?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link