[ad_1]
Again in 2020, Marc Andreessen wrote a superb critique of NIMBYism entitled “It’s Time To Construct“. Right here’s an excerpt:
You don’t simply see this smug complacency, this satisfaction with the established order and the unwillingness to construct, within the pandemic, or in healthcare typically. You see it all through Western life, and particularly all through American life.
You see it in housing and the bodily footprint of our cities. We will’t construct practically sufficient housing in our cities with surging financial potential — which ends up in crazily skyrocketing housing costs in locations like San Francisco, making it practically unimaginable for normal folks to maneuver in and take the roles of the longer term. We can also’t construct the cities themselves anymore. When the producers of HBO’s “Westworld” needed to painting the American metropolis of the longer term, they didn’t movie in Seattle or Los Angeles or Austin — they went to Singapore. We should always have gleaming skyscrapers and spectacular residing environments in all our greatest cities at ranges manner past what now we have now; the place are they?
I’m undecided the place these gleaming skyscrapers are, however they definitely should not in Atherton, an prosperous Silicon Valley suburb with “surging financial potential”. Right here’s The Atlantic:
The city of Atherton, California, is America’s most costly zip code and is primarily reserved for very giant houses (the minimal lot dimension ranges from one-third of an acre to 1 acre). The planning division proposed to modestly enhance the zoned capability of Atherton, legalizing the development of smaller, multifamily properties in a couple of locations—just a bit greater than 130 items whole by 2031.
Andreessen and his spouse, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, a philanthropist, apparently submitted this public remark by way of e mail to the mayor and metropolis council expressing their opposition, a portion of which reads:
Topic line: IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily improvement!
I’m penning this letter to speak our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton … Please IMMEDIATELY REMOVE all multifamily overlay zoning initiatives from the Housing Factor which will probably be submitted to the state in July. They’ll MASSIVELY lower our residence values, the standard of lifetime of ourselves and our neighbors and IMMENSELY enhance the noise air pollution and visitors.
I’ll reserve judgment till I hear the opposite facet of the story. However one factor is evident; the next hypothetical assertion wouldn’t represent a passable rationalization:
Typically we have to loosen zoning and construct rather more housing, however Atherton just isn’t a superb place for the brand new housing.
The richer the realm, the better the profit from constructing extra housing. America would profit if Atherton had extra gleaming skyscrapers. I think that even Atherton would profit.
PS. Take into account that the precise proposal was to construct 130 housing items in all the metropolis over a complete decade. We aren’t speaking about Manhattan or Singapore. Atherton would nonetheless be Atherton.
[ad_2]
Source link
