from Hacker News

To Ease Housing Crisis, California Lawmakers Vote to Open Suburbs to Development

by bartart on 8/26/21, 7:08 PM with 20 comments

• by dredmorbius on 8/27/21, 4:19 AM

  From friends who'd grown up, or watched their children grow up, in California, and then discovered that they simply could not afford to remain there --- with family, friends, neighbourhoods, and landscapes they'd grown up and identified with --- this isn't just about providing housing for new arrivals. It's about housing the population that is there already. Likewise those who've retired and would like to remain in the state, preferably not too long a drive from friends and family (or medical services and at least some urban amenities). Or those who've found themselves burned out of homes an unable to find replacement housing.

  California's forty-year "just say no" anti-housing campaign simply cannot be sustained while retaining functional cities, towns, and a state as a whole.

  Or to put a twist on the tired argument: propertyowners and banks have no right to an ever-accellerating rate of asset inflation if it renders both society and economy unsustainable.

  (That housing is now a crisis across the US, and in numerous other countries, doesn't diminish this argument at all.)

• by lordloki on 8/26/21, 7:53 PM

  They might be better off banning short term rentals such as AirBnB, and banning investment and foreign SFH ownership.

• by sul_tasto on 8/26/21, 7:56 PM

  This is about profit for housing developers, period. They can make more money on units on established areas with highly rated schools, instead of building apartments or townhouses further out. It’s no different than the school redistricting initiatives democrat-leaning school boards are pushing under the guise of ‘equity,’ so that more housing can be built near highly rated schools for a higher profit. There’s no noble cause here. It’s plain corruption.