> They need the California State Government to overrule local zoning limits
Yes, California and other places with housing problems need as-of-right policies as the article suggests. It's not simply zoning, it's removing all ability of local governments to hold things up, because people will use absolutely anything they can grab onto.
From a philosophical standpoint, people are sometimes uncomfortable with the idea of pre-empting local control—after all, don't they know better? But as the article points out, it's a coordination problem. There is a certain cost [1] to be paid in building housing, unfortunately, and you need a higher-level (in this case, state-wide) view to distribute that cost fairly.
> And I think that anywhere a single-family detached home currently exists, a 2-family home should be allowed.
Make it more like 4–8 (but maybe limited to 3-4 stories), and I'm in.
[1]: As the article points out, however, we think far too often only about the costs. I for one would welcome more neighbors.
I don't understand though how the state government will be expected to implement this different than the local government; they both draw from essentially the same voterbase that is hostile toward the upzoning as the majority of the state population resides in those large cities anyway. The only real difference is that you'll also have a population of rural voters observing from the sidelines as they have no investment in the issue of high-density zoning
The difference is turnout. It's way easier to turn out for one single election (electing someone who will pre-empt this NIMBY nonsense) than it is to turn out to dozens of local meetings most people don't even hear about where these projects are discussed. Historically, the only people who show up to those meetings are the NIMBYs. There was a meeting in my city about housing and transit. On Thursday. At 2pm. How many people are gonna show up for that?
The edges. There are people who want to live in the city who are forced to live outside (a suburb) who cannot vote in the local election but can vote in the state election. Also rural farmers do not like seeing their neighbor's land turned into a subdivision (this is a form of NIMBY of course - more than a few of them lost bids to buy the subdivision and keep farming it), so those on the edges are also likely to vote this way
Yes, California and other places with housing problems need as-of-right policies as the article suggests. It's not simply zoning, it's removing all ability of local governments to hold things up, because people will use absolutely anything they can grab onto.
From a philosophical standpoint, people are sometimes uncomfortable with the idea of pre-empting local control—after all, don't they know better? But as the article points out, it's a coordination problem. There is a certain cost [1] to be paid in building housing, unfortunately, and you need a higher-level (in this case, state-wide) view to distribute that cost fairly.
> And I think that anywhere a single-family detached home currently exists, a 2-family home should be allowed.
Make it more like 4–8 (but maybe limited to 3-4 stories), and I'm in.
[1]: As the article points out, however, we think far too often only about the costs. I for one would welcome more neighbors.