Opinion | America’s Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals. - The New York Times

[Anonymous]

Everyone is a hypocrite- you have the GOP out there with these insane anti-abortion bills, but would treat actual living, breathing children like garbage-- liberal elites, I know a few who do not care about Americans living in rural poverty, struggling with opioids, failing farms, barely getting by.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree there are problems but most of this I'd lay at the feet of the GOP and their out of control spending on defense and huge deficits brought on by tax cuts for the wealthuy.

How does that have anything to do with the heavily blue cities and their housing affordability problems? I suspect you didn't read the article.

Zoning regulations are not a federal responsibility. They are local responsibilities.It has nothing to do with the GOP in Washington and out of control spending on defense and huge deficits.

The power to zone is wholly at local government levels. And zoning is what affects housing prices more than anything else. Just to use as an example: Bethesda is infamous for teardowns and replacing small starter homes with McMansions selling for 1+ million. That happens in part because zoning only allows SFH on those lots. If Montgomery County rezoned to allow SFH on a quarter acre lot to be replaced with rowhouses or apartments, you'd find a lot more affordable housing in Bethesda..... But can you imagine the uproar?

Sorry, but a lot of those people that would and do uproar are conservatives. MoCo may be dominated by Democrats, but those NIMBY's with the deepest pockets are often not liberal AT ALL.

Look at Chevy Chase Country Club that used a lot of money and power to try to scuttle the Purple line and higher density development near their club. You think they are "liberals"? They are not.

The problem isn't "liberal cities." It's those who have the money and power to tie up the system from making meaningful changes. San Francisco has actually been trying to increase density, but the wealthy NIMBY's keep suing and gumming up new policies in the courts. Here's a hint: they are NOT uniformly liberal. In fact, I would posit that they probably trend conservative, even in San Francisco.

+ 1

They might call themselves Democrats but on a local level, they don't practice what the party preaches. They don't want dense low income housing built near where they live and they don't want to share their school district's resources with other poor school districts. And they don't want poor kids being able to choose to come into affluent schools.

They're libertarians at best which is not a progressive party.

What is this shit? You're claiming they're not real Democrats even if they've always voted Democratic? You're just making excuses for the failures of people on your side of the political spectrum to tackle genuine issues. MoCo is heavily, predominately, overwhelmingly liberal as per voting records go. There is no excuse. The Nimby people are solidly liberal democrats. There's no avoiding this.

All the anti growth people I see in most major urban areas are hardcore Dems. Anti gentrification? Always Democrats. Anti tower blocks/skyscrapers? Always Democrats. Do you know why? Because Republicans don't live in the cities in any meaningful numbers.

Well what else are you supposed to call self identifying "liberal" Democrats who scupper any proposals to build multifamily housing or share resources with poorer school districts (either by changing district lines or busing poor kids in or what have you)? Besides NIMBY hypocrites.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article isn’t about spreading around the wealth to smaller cities. It’s about seemingly “liberal” people routinely blocking proposals to change zoning laws to allow affordable housing - which brings the diversity they tell everyone they love - to their own neighborhoods.

This is why you shouldn’t judge rich liberals by what they say, but what they do. There are a lot of people out here calling Trump a racist that spend millions of dollars to live in rich, mostly white enclaves and do everything they can to keep their DCs away from schools with large populations of minority, low SES kids. They claim to love diversity, but do everything to avoid and fight it in their own lives.

Correction: they love the *right* kind of diversity. Obama as your neighbor? Fabulous. Working class white family that goes hunting on the weekend? Oh, god no!

We keep getting these posters claiming that they can't move to smaller cities because of jobs and I'm always puzzled because most smaller American cities are doing just fine. Jobs isn't the point of the article. It's really about a handful of certain cities becoming unaffordable, and yep, it's because it's very difficult to build large scale new housing to keep up with the demand, and a large part of that is due to NIMBYISM. IF DC was allowed to achieve the density of New York, it'd become a lot more affordable. But try demolishing blocks of historic rowhouses for tower blocks you only get angry screeches and protests.

Do you ever hang out with working class white families who hunt? They have zero desire to live in small, expensive, urban areas. They want land and privacy.

I like people who are working class and hunt. I'm happy to have them as my neighbors. But they do not proactively live in diverse urban communities. That's not their vibe.

Plenty of working class whites in inner suburbs of most cities. Take a trek up to Baltimore. Many go hunting on weekends. They drive out to Western Maryland.

The sneering Bethesda people would never condescend to live next to a hunting, fishing, shooting working class family because they're probably also Trump supporters.

I live in a Bethesda neighborhood, they are all DEMOCRATS! No hate lives here signs are all over their lawns and they wallow in taking their young daughters to whatever cause is the latest rally. Bethesda is predominantly Democrat.

+1.

Previous PP is delusional.

[Anonymous]

You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

This

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone is a hypocrite- you have the GOP out there with these insane anti-abortion bills, but would treat actual living, breathing children like garbage-- liberal elites, I know a few who do not care about Americans living in rural poverty, struggling with opioids, failing farms, barely getting by.

+1

I lose respect for people who are obsessed with politics

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

There's a post like this on the travel forum. Poster is concerned about the "warming crisis" even yet has 3 kids and travels by plane 4 times a year. I bet they live in a big air conditioned house too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

There's a post like this on the travel forum. Poster is concerned about the "warming crisis" even yet has 3 kids and travels by plane 4 times a year. I bet they live in a big air conditioned house too.

I have 1 kid, an apartment with a window unit (we close off the other rooms when it's unbearably hot), and never fly anywhere. Do I get to be concerned? Also, yes certainly our lifestyles make a difference, but it's really willfully ignorant to act like a) our infrastructure systems don't shape those lifestyles, it's 100% personal choice in a completely free world and b) virtuous individual behavior is enough to solve the problem. It's absolutely not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

This

I put very little stock in the ability of DCUM posters to speak on behalf of “normal America.” Too many insecure, status-obsessed types who will latch onto any topic to reveal their own resentments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

There's a post like this on the travel forum. Poster is concerned about the "warming crisis" even yet has 3 kids and travels by plane 4 times a year. I bet they live in a big air conditioned house too.

I have 1 kid, an apartment with a window unit (we close off the other rooms when it's unbearably hot), and never fly anywhere. Do I get to be concerned? Also, yes certainly our lifestyles make a difference, but it's really willfully ignorant to act like a) our infrastructure systems don't shape those lifestyles, it's 100% personal choice in a completely free world and b) virtuous individual behavior is enough to solve the problem. It's absolutely not.

Nevertheless it's hypocritical to say you care about global warming then choose to have 3 kids and travel by plane more than a couple times a year. This lady's carbon footprint is immense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree there are problems but most of this I'd lay at the feet of the GOP and their out of control spending on defense and huge deficits brought on by tax cuts for the wealthuy.

How does that have anything to do with the heavily blue cities and their housing affordability problems? I suspect you didn't read the article.

Zoning regulations are not a federal responsibility. They are local responsibilities.It has nothing to do with the GOP in Washington and out of control spending on defense and huge deficits.

The power to zone is wholly at local government levels. And zoning is what affects housing prices more than anything else. Just to use as an example: Bethesda is infamous for teardowns and replacing small starter homes with McMansions selling for 1+ million. That happens in part because zoning only allows SFH on those lots. If Montgomery County rezoned to allow SFH on a quarter acre lot to be replaced with rowhouses or apartments, you'd find a lot more affordable housing in Bethesda..... But can you imagine the uproar?

Sorry, but a lot of those people that would and do uproar are conservatives. MoCo may be dominated by Democrats, but those NIMBY's with the deepest pockets are often not liberal AT ALL.

Look at Chevy Chase Country Club that used a lot of money and power to try to scuttle the Purple line and higher density development near their club. You think they are "liberals"? They are not.

The problem isn't "liberal cities." It's those who have the money and power to tie up the system from making meaningful changes. San Francisco has actually been trying to increase density, but the wealthy NIMBY's keep suing and gumming up new policies in the courts. Here's a hint: they are NOT uniformly liberal. In fact, I would posit that they probably trend conservative, even in San Francisco.

Also MoCo is not all of our region. Here in Virginia there are plenty of NIMBY Republicans - in Old Town and other parts of Alexandria, in Arlington, and particularly in Fairfax.

If some Democrats are "fauxgressives" on urbanism issues, failing to live up to their claims to welcome all to their communities, there are certainly plenty of hypocritical Republicans, whose belief in the magic of the market suddenly stops when its about using price to allocate space on a congested highway, and whose belief in the sanctity of private property stops when someone wants to build an ADU in their neighborhood, and whose belief in respecting the right of a business to judge what will sell ends when a new building decides it does NOT need quite so many parking spaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

There's a post like this on the travel forum. Poster is concerned about the "warming crisis" even yet has 3 kids and travels by plane 4 times a year. I bet they live in a big air conditioned house too.

I have 1 kid, an apartment with a window unit (we close off the other rooms when it's unbearably hot), and never fly anywhere. Do I get to be concerned? Also, yes certainly our lifestyles make a difference, but it's really willfully ignorant to act like a) our infrastructure systems don't shape those lifestyles, it's 100% personal choice in a completely free world and b) virtuous individual behavior is enough to solve the problem. It's absolutely not.

Nevertheless it's hypocritical to say you care about global warming then choose to have 3 kids and travel by plane more than a couple times a year. This lady's carbon footprint is immense.

Doesn't make her wrong, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree there are problems but most of this I'd lay at the feet of the GOP and their out of control spending on defense and huge deficits brought on by tax cuts for the wealthuy.

How does that have anything to do with the heavily blue cities and their housing affordability problems? I suspect you didn't read the article.

Zoning regulations are not a federal responsibility. They are local responsibilities.It has nothing to do with the GOP in Washington and out of control spending on defense and huge deficits.

The power to zone is wholly at local government levels. And zoning is what affects housing prices more than anything else. Just to use as an example: Bethesda is infamous for teardowns and replacing small starter homes with McMansions selling for 1+ million. That happens in part because zoning only allows SFH on those lots. If Montgomery County rezoned to allow SFH on a quarter acre lot to be replaced with rowhouses or apartments, you'd find a lot more affordable housing in Bethesda..... But can you imagine the uproar?

Sorry, but a lot of those people that would and do uproar are conservatives. MoCo may be dominated by Democrats, but those NIMBY's with the deepest pockets are often not liberal AT ALL.

Look at Chevy Chase Country Club that used a lot of money and power to try to scuttle the Purple line and higher density development near their club. You think they are "liberals"? They are not.

The problem isn't "liberal cities." It's those who have the money and power to tie up the system from making meaningful changes. San Francisco has actually been trying to increase density, but the wealthy NIMBY's keep suing and gumming up new policies in the courts. Here's a hint: they are NOT uniformly liberal. In fact, I would posit that they probably trend conservative, even in San Francisco.

Also MoCo is not all of our region. Here in Virginia there are plenty of NIMBY Republicans - in Old Town and other parts of Alexandria, in Arlington, and particularly in Fairfax.

If some Democrats are "fauxgressives" on urbanism issues, failing to live up to their claims to welcome all to their communities, there are certainly plenty of hypocritical Republicans, whose belief in the magic of the market suddenly stops when its about using price to allocate space on a congested highway, and whose belief in the sanctity of private property stops when someone wants to build an ADU in their neighborhood, and whose belief in respecting the right of a business to judge what will sell ends when a new building decides it does NOT need quite so many parking spaces.

Yawn. More excuses. More pretending Democrats aren't as bad. Actually, they're even worse than Republicans when it comes to Nimbyism. Republicans love real estate development. They love building. Look at the sprawling, endless Republican suburbs of the midwest and Texas and Florida. It's in the high density Democratic controlled and dominated cities that you find the staunchest, angriest, loudest NIMBYism and intense zoning regulations that prevent higher density. Good luck in your silly denial, lady.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

There's a post like this on the travel forum. Poster is concerned about the "warming crisis" even yet has 3 kids and travels by plane 4 times a year. I bet they live in a big air conditioned house too.

I have 1 kid, an apartment with a window unit (we close off the other rooms when it's unbearably hot), and never fly anywhere. Do I get to be concerned? Also, yes certainly our lifestyles make a difference, but it's really willfully ignorant to act like a) our infrastructure systems don't shape those lifestyles, it's 100% personal choice in a completely free world and b) virtuous individual behavior is enough to solve the problem. It's absolutely not.

Nevertheless it's hypocritical to say you care about global warming then choose to have 3 kids and travel by plane more than a couple times a year. This lady's carbon footprint is immense.

Reminds me of Emma Thompson, who flew all the way from LA to London to partake in a mass Climate Change protest. You really wanted to slap some silly sense in her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

There's a post like this on the travel forum. Poster is concerned about the "warming crisis" even yet has 3 kids and travels by plane 4 times a year. I bet they live in a big air conditioned house too.

I have 1 kid, an apartment with a window unit (we close off the other rooms when it's unbearably hot), and never fly anywhere. Do I get to be concerned? Also, yes certainly our lifestyles make a difference, but it's really willfully ignorant to act like a) our infrastructure systems don't shape those lifestyles, it's 100% personal choice in a completely free world and b) virtuous individual behavior is enough to solve the problem. It's absolutely not.

Nevertheless it's hypocritical to say you care about global warming then choose to have 3 kids and travel by plane more than a couple times a year. This lady's carbon footprint is immense.

But if you don't have 3 kids, we can't maintain the minimum social security nets, let alone the additional ones, everyone is supposedly clamoring for.