By Farhad Manjoo

To live in California at this time is to experience every day the cryptic phrase that George W. Bush once used to describe the invasion of Iraq: “Catastrophic success.” The economy here is booming, but no one feels especially good about it. When the cost of living is taken into account, billionaire-brimming California ranks as the most poverty-stricken state, with a fifth of the population struggling to get by. Since 2010, migration out of California has surged.

The basic problem is the steady collapse of livability. Across my home state, traffic and transportation is a developing-world nightmare. Child care and education seem impossible for all but the wealthiest. The problems of affordable housing and homelessness have surpassed all superlatives — what was a crisis is now an emergency that feels like a dystopian showcase of American inequality.

Just look at San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi’s city. One of every 11,600 residents is a billionaire, and the annual household income necessary to buy a median-priced home now tops $320,000. Yet the streets there are a plague of garbage and needles and feces, and every morning brings fresh horror stories from a “Black Mirror” hellscape: Homeless veterans are surviving on an economy of trash from billionaires’ mansions. Wealthy homeowners are crowdfunding a legal effort arguing that a proposed homeless shelter is an environmental hazard. A public-school teacher suffering from cancer is forced to pay for her own substitute.

In March, teachers went on strike for seven days in Oakland, Calif., arguing that their salaries were not keeping up with the region’s soaring cost of living.Ben Margot/Associated Press

In March, teachers went on strike for seven days in Oakland, Calif., arguing that their salaries were not keeping up with the region’s soaring cost of living.Ben Margot/Associated Press

And there is no end in sight to such crushing success. At every level of government, our representatives, nearly all of them Democrats, prove inadequate and unresponsive to the challenges at hand. Witness last week’s embarrassment, when California lawmakers used a sketchy parliamentary maneuver to knife Senate Bill 50, an ambitious effort to undo restrictive local zoning rules and increase the supply of housing.

It was another chapter in a dismal saga of Nimbyist urban mismanagement that is crushing American cities. Not-in-my-backyardism is a bipartisan sentiment, but because the largest American cities are populated and run by Democrats — many in states under complete Democratic control — this sort of nakedly exclusionary urban restrictionism is a particular shame of the left.

There are many threads in the story of America’s increasingly unlivable cities. One continuing tragedy is the decimation of local media and the rise of nationalized politics in its place. In America the “local” problems plaguing cities are systematically sidelined by the structure of the national media and government, in which the presidency, the Senate and the Supreme Court are all constitutionally tilted in favor of places where no one lives. (There are more than twice as many people in my midsize suburban county, Santa Clara, as there are in the entire state of North Dakota, with its two United States senators.)

That’s why, aside from Elizabeth Warren — who has a plan for housing, as she has a plan for everything — Democrats on the 2020 presidential trail rarely mention their ideas for housing affordability, an issue eating American cities alive. I watched Joe Biden’s campaign kick off the other day; the only house he mentioned was the White House.

Then there is the refusal on the part of wealthy progressives to live by the values they profess to support at the national level. Creating dense, economically and socially diverse urban environments ought to be a paramount goal of progressivism. Cities are the standard geographical unit of the global economy. Dense urban areas are quite literally the “real America” — the cities are where two-thirds of Americans live, and they account for almost all national economic output. Urban areas are the most environmentally friendly way we know of housing lots of people. We can’t solve the climate crisis without vastly improving public transportation and increasing urban density. More than that, metropolises are good for the psyche and the soul; density fosters tolerance, diversity, creativity and progress.

Yet where progressives argue for openness and inclusion as a cudgel against President Trump, they abandon it on Nob Hill and in Beverly Hills. This explains the opposition to SB 50, which aimed to address the housing shortage in a very straightforward way: by building more housing. The bill would have erased single-family zoning in populous areas near transit locations. Areas zoned for homes housing a handful of people could have been redeveloped to include duplexes and apartment buildings that housed hundreds.

State Senator Scott Wiener, center, introduced a bill, later shelved, that would have allowed higher-density housing in areas close to transit and jobs.Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press

State Senator Scott Wiener, center, introduced a bill, later shelved, that would have allowed higher-density housing in areas close to transit and jobs.Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press

The bill had garnered support from a diverse coalition of business and advocacy groups, and its sponsor, State Senator Scott Wiener, had negotiated a series of compromises with some of its fiercest opponents. Polls showed the measure to be widely popular. For the first time, something extraordinary looked possible: California’s wealthy homeowners would abandon their restrictionist attitudes and let us build some new housing.

Nope. Instead, Anthony Portantino, a Democratic state senator whose district includes the posh city of La Cañada Flintridge and who heads the appropriations committee, announced that he’d be shelving the bill until next year. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, he worried that the law would spur lots of people to move near residential bus routes, which he suggested would alter the character of enclaves like his.

And? Why is that so bad?

Reading opposition to SB 50 and other efforts at increasing density, I’m struck by an unsettling thought: What Republicans want to do with I.C.E. and border walls, wealthy progressive Democrats are doing with zoning and Nimbyism. Preserving “local character,” maintaining “local control,” keeping housing scarce and inaccessible — the goals of both sides are really the same: to keep people out.

“We’re saying we welcome immigration, we welcome refugees, we welcome outsiders — but you’ve got to have a $2 million entrance fee to live here, otherwise you can use this part of a sidewalk for a tent,” said Brian Hanlon, president of the pro-density group California Yimby. “That to me is not being very welcoming. It’s not being very neighborly.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38278964)

Inglewood, CAMay 22

Times Pick

Senator Scott Wiener is clearly beholden to developers eager to raze suburban neighborhoods and replace beautiful, unique and prized single family homes with five-story slabs of concrete more appropriate to Stalinist Russia. Californians do not wish to live in such soulless environs.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38278966)

Long Beach, CAMay 22

Times Pick

There are clearly big problems in large urban areas, but it's incorrect to blame that on Democrats or liberals or whoever. You know who are creating these problems? We are. Who charges exorbitant rents, liberals? No, people who own rental properties and want top market dollar for their units. Hey, makes sense, but don't blame government.

Who is keeping wages down? Business owners wishing to maximize profits as much as possible—your neighbors. Did China steal our jobs? No, American business leaders moved manufacturing jobs overseas to maximize profits. Same thing with automation.

So please, let's not make this another oppositional liberal vs. conservative construct. The very idea that the entire country is divided into two camps on any issue is also a false narrative and extremely destructive to the fabric of this nation, though admittedly a useful tool for manipulating the masses. Or, for dismantling our democracy, while we squabble over every single problem that arises out of overpopulation of cities and unfettered greed.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38278972)

Whoa there friend! Let's not think too hard about this, shall we?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38278991)

USAMay 22

I think the writer lives in some strange California of his own mind. Things here are, on balance, pretty good. San Francisco has a homeless problem because Ronald Reagan and a generation of Republicans did away with mental hospitals and their expense, and ill-advised civil liberties groups have blocked civil commitment reform. Average citizens too feel squeezed in SF, but not being able to afford Pacific Heights or the Marina is not a housing crisis, it's a whining crisis.

Conservatives pointing to cities and saying, "Cities have crime, and homelessness and traffic, and Democrats run cities, so Democrats create crime, homelessness and traffic," is such a simple logical fallacy that a 3 year old can unravel it. But apparently not every NYT columnist can.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38278981)

"RONALD WILSON REAGAN" they continued without irony.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38279981)

RGHicks

New YorkMay 23

In my small city - 25 miles north of NYC, developers have descended like locusts. Spot zoning has made a mockery of our zoning laws as 20 story structures that look like they are put together with cardboard and scotch tape are approved for areas zoned for 3 stories.

But here's the kicker. Almost NONE of the 6000 new units approved (which could increase our live-in population by about 15%) is even remotely affordable for an average person or family. Worse, the required set-aside of 10% affordable units is often reduced to a paltry 6% if the developer is willing to pay a fee. Meanwhile, local property tax breaks, PILOT (Payments In Leiu Of Taxes) on the county level ensure that the developer pays minimal property taxes.

So guess who gets to pay for all this? This includes new roads, sewage, drainage, water supply, increased school population, increased police and fire? Current homeowners end up footing the bill while developers laugh all the way to the bank.

The end result is that current residents wind up paying to subsidize LUXURY HOUSING where a 450 sf box of a studio goes for over $2000/month. Want a 2BR? That will be $3.5-$4k a month. Most people in our community are subsidizing development they themselves can't afford to live in.

Tell me again, how this is supposed to relieve an affordability crisis? And please don't tell me the rents will come down once we reach a "tipping point" unless you can show me viable examples where this has actually worked.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38279023)

Owner: *writes check*

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38279247)

Affordability filters down.

"Tell me again, how this is supposed to relieve an affordability crisis?"

Additional supply, fuckhead.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#45097100)

So when Silicon Valley wakes up one morning (around 2007-2008) and decides to move out of San Jose to establish its operation in San Francisco the city is not only completely unprepared and unaware of what the consequences will be, but it welcomes the companies with a multitude of tax breaks and red carpets of all kinds.

Fast forward ten years and the same dynamic that obliterated San Francisco is obliterating the rest of the Bay Area.

But it is not the "wealthy liberals". It is a malaise, a failure of political imagination, at the National level. As a Nation we have given up on the idea of building a society, and embraced instead the idea that unbridled capitalistic growth will solve any and all of our problems.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38279034)

How fucking deranged do you have to be to believe this?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38281192)

San Francisco's minority communities have been fighting the YIMBYs, who seek to terraform SF into a much shinier, far more expensive place--an unattainable place, for most. 

I'm not against duplexes, triplexes etc (we converted our house to a triplex from single family), and I'm very much for more affordable housing. But let's be honest about what's behind the YIMBY agenda, and who it is actually serving. There is little transparency, at the moment.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38279037)

Los Angeles, CAMay 22

@Pancho - You are being unfair to the columnist who wrote a nice article about problems in large cities. Such problems are real and people - for complex reasons - resist difficult solutions. I am a liberal Democrat who lives in Los Angeles. Despite high taxes, the public school system is far below excellent. Thus, in a city dominated by liberals, the school system is weak and many people (including me) pay for private schools. It is a real problem, and a hard problem to solve.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38279051)

NE Ohio6h ago

Wow, just build more housing and all will be well. Brilliant!

How about this instead: pay living wages to all, and apply proper taxation to those who consume the most and/or use their money in non-productive ways, and see what happens when people not only can pay rent and utilities, but buy food, and afford a visit to the doctor or dentist (something that could be avoided to some extent if we had universal health care).

And, were we to get really efficient and look at the heart of the matter (or one of the hearts, to be honest), we'd discourage all those "efficient" modes of production, of business, that cuts out actual employees, installs robotic or foreign (non-US) employees, or otherwise circumvents employing Human US labor....all for the sake of profit.

Most people are quite willing to work. It just needs to be a equitable arrangement in respect to wages for work done. More often than not, it is not (and that is largely due to too many of life's necessities - food, shelter, utilities, healthcare - being over-priced and unfairly controlled by self-regulated entities.

But no, let's just build some houses. I mean, "homeless" just means "have no house", right?

Sheesh.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38279061)

that's CRAZY

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38279162)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38280900)

lol wut is this bitch smoking in her lib pipe?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38279914)

The CA GOP can win, they just choose not to.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38280226)

dem jobs be in dat bay

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38281814)

Out of 16 people there (all Lowcountry residents), 8 were from California. Everyone one was working in private business, i.e. no military personnel. We drank Stone IPA's and pondered how this is even possible. Much discussion was given to whether Melvin's Bacon Cheeseburger could be mentioned in the same sentence as a double-double.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#38282264)

holy shit

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4267846&forum_id=2#45097042)