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 -
Except, of course, the ones who were evicted to have their homes razed to build those lanes.
The evictions are just one of the many negative externalities imposed by the construction of huge roads. Some others are pollution (local and global), obesity (from people using their cars instead of walking or cycling) and infrastructure that the suburbs can't afford and need subsidies for.
At some point the harm from the externalities starts to outweigh the benefit of people living "where they want to live" – in scare quotes because where people want to live is dependent on what's on offer, and if the only available form of housing is sprawling lifeless suburbs criss-crossed by lifeless eight-lane highways, then that's where people will want to live. I assume you're not suggesting that, if higher density housing were built closer to the centres of cities, it would stay empty. That would clearly be absurd.
First, this is not something that routinely happens for traffic mitigation projects. Second, people who get eminent domained are compensated for this, typically more than their house is actually worth. Third, this is just as much of an argument against densification, upzoning, and public transit: those also displace people.
Somehow I knew without clicking that this will be a link to Strongtowns. I knew it, because nobody else is making this argument, and this is because their entire argument is completely bogus. I wrote about it years ago, see also this more detailed one.
Here's one more reason why it's entirely wrong: observe that every year, dozens of new master planned communities crop up. The development of these is basically entirely funded by the sale of the properties. The developers can't just come to some adjacent or local government and ask them to just build roads, water mains, electricity lines etc. This is not paid for by "someone else", it's the homeowners themselves who cover all of this cost, when they initially buy their new construction houses, and then later when they pay property taxes and/or HOA fees. Local governments do not build stuff for the developers, typically they actually ask developers to pay extra taxes and fees, labelled as "impact fees" and such.
What externalities, exactly? On whom they fall? Where is the assessment that honestly tries to measure these, balance positive vs negative externalities, and compares to the balance of externalities of any alternatives? I've never seen anything of this sort, at best I see tendentious, motivated reasoning of the StrongTowns variety, one sided assessments that only calculate costs, do little to actually determine who pays these costs, and does not even attempt to assess the benefits.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link