The contrast of the success of the YIMBY movement with the repeated failures of the intersectional left is hard not to notice. One builds coalitions and is willing to work with anyone whether they're on the left or right. The other demands 100% adherence to the entire left-wing project. It's no surprise movements that succeed do so by being as bipartisan as possible and appealing to people in very different ways. Demanding that the only way someone can agree with you on, say, supporting clean energy is to agree with you on every issue under the sun is a great way to alienate them.
I find it interesting that the "official" YIMBY movement has maintained a nonpartisan reputation and really has pull on both sides of the aisle, because the grassroots YIMBY movement seems to be comprised mostly of young, urban, well-educated, liberal nerds. A lot of the most popular YIMBY content creators will snark about how McMansions and cars suck and how Europe is so much better than the US. This is the kind of thing that would be designed in a lab to alienate MAGA Republicans, and yet it hasn't tainted efforts to build coalitions with Republican politicians when legislation is being pushed.
What needs to be emphasized is how dense development - houses on 1 acre or less is actually pro environment. I am on the town council on my upstate town - and we are starting to work with land conservancy groups. We just bought a ninety acre parcel -- we bought most of it with the money from our conservation fund which is funded by a real estate transfer tax. We reserved fifteen acres - and that parcel was purchased with funds out of of our general town fund. We will do dense housing on that parcel -- low and moderate priced homes and rentals. These lucky people will be surrounded by open space which will be shared with the rest of community. And people who live in these new homes and rentals will be able to walk to town. This is how you preserve open space -- you don't preserve it by carving up the land with two and four acre parcels.
Will the Build Now Act, the ROAD to Housing Act, and the Build More Housing Near Transit Act prompt local governments — at public expense — to create for investors, along with the banks they borrow from, chances to extract even more gains by controlling even more real estate?
Will SB 79 and AB 130 remove obstacles for investors to do more of the same?
Is that what these acts will do?
In view of such developments, would you say that our post-capitalist economy is drifting more toward financialization, or rentism?
Wouldn't it be more productive to pass laws which restrict the plutocratic hoarding and exploitation of a basic human need, like shelter?
I don't follow the argument about "plutocratic hoarding". In the United States, The vast majority of all housing has been developed by investors and is owned by either owner occupants or investors who cover their expenses and potentially earn a profit by renting to residents. This system has never covered 100% of shelter needs and has historically been augmented by limited public provision of housing. This system, while imperfect, worked tolerably well during the latter part of the 20th century, but has faltered due to two main reasons: 1) unprecedented restrictions on new construction by both private and public builders and 2) withdrawal of public subsidy for both new construction of public housing and housing vouchers for households with low incomes, and the ineffective replacement of these methods with very limited amounts of low income housing tax credits to spur new construction, and destructive attempts to tax new housing to provide a small amount of subsidized housing through "inclusive zoning". Both are fixable problems.
Investors have adopted a strategy of using "1031 exchanges" to pool tax-free gains as real estate equity, borrowing against that equity, then re-investing the borrowed money in more real estate, in an endless process of acquisition which has changed the value proposition of real estate from that of a basic human need, into a wealth token with high collateral value, along with a much inflated price.
IRC Section 1031 allows tax deferment on investment properties only. This has created a tyranny where landlords pass the ever-increasing costs of servicing their massive loans to the backs of tenants, who effectively pay for these investors' borrowed lifestyles with the extortionary rents they're compelled to pay — not for the lease of high-collateral value wealth tokens, but of a basic human need.
I used the term "plutocracy" loosely, as an emphatic way to describe this sort of "government" of renters, by high net-worth landlords.
Many, if not most, of the new homes inspired with the incentive of public money provided by the acts referred to in this essay, will be purchased by predatory investors who themselves are caught in this Section 1031 cycle of buying, borrowing, selling, buying again, borrowing some more, re-selling, and then re-buying — all for the sake of hoarding value which they then borrow against to fund their lifestyles, as their wealth stays away from the capitalist system, vested in grossly price-inflated, *passive* assets…
A remedy for this would be, of course, to revoke Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code. This would restrict the exploitative consequences of "plutocratic hoarding" of the sort of indispensable need which can be withheld for extortionary rents.
I'll rejoice on the day any government has the courage to do such a thing but, in the meantime, I guess we're stuck with subsidizing equity opportunities for land investors, using public money…
The more housing is built, the less power landlords have to charge extortionate rents. Landlords in Houston aren't less greedy, or more unable to use 1031 exchanges, than landlords in LA or NYC. But they're not able to charge as much in rent, because Houston builds more housing, so there's more competition.
The contrast of the success of the YIMBY movement with the repeated failures of the intersectional left is hard not to notice. One builds coalitions and is willing to work with anyone whether they're on the left or right. The other demands 100% adherence to the entire left-wing project. It's no surprise movements that succeed do so by being as bipartisan as possible and appealing to people in very different ways. Demanding that the only way someone can agree with you on, say, supporting clean energy is to agree with you on every issue under the sun is a great way to alienate them.
I find it interesting that the "official" YIMBY movement has maintained a nonpartisan reputation and really has pull on both sides of the aisle, because the grassroots YIMBY movement seems to be comprised mostly of young, urban, well-educated, liberal nerds. A lot of the most popular YIMBY content creators will snark about how McMansions and cars suck and how Europe is so much better than the US. This is the kind of thing that would be designed in a lab to alienate MAGA Republicans, and yet it hasn't tainted efforts to build coalitions with Republican politicians when legislation is being pushed.
Plenty of those young urban nerds are libertarians, and this also good staffing fits.
What needs to be emphasized is how dense development - houses on 1 acre or less is actually pro environment. I am on the town council on my upstate town - and we are starting to work with land conservancy groups. We just bought a ninety acre parcel -- we bought most of it with the money from our conservation fund which is funded by a real estate transfer tax. We reserved fifteen acres - and that parcel was purchased with funds out of of our general town fund. We will do dense housing on that parcel -- low and moderate priced homes and rentals. These lucky people will be surrounded by open space which will be shared with the rest of community. And people who live in these new homes and rentals will be able to walk to town. This is how you preserve open space -- you don't preserve it by carving up the land with two and four acre parcels.
Will the Build Now Act, the ROAD to Housing Act, and the Build More Housing Near Transit Act prompt local governments — at public expense — to create for investors, along with the banks they borrow from, chances to extract even more gains by controlling even more real estate?
Will SB 79 and AB 130 remove obstacles for investors to do more of the same?
Is that what these acts will do?
In view of such developments, would you say that our post-capitalist economy is drifting more toward financialization, or rentism?
Wouldn't it be more productive to pass laws which restrict the plutocratic hoarding and exploitation of a basic human need, like shelter?
I don't follow the argument about "plutocratic hoarding". In the United States, The vast majority of all housing has been developed by investors and is owned by either owner occupants or investors who cover their expenses and potentially earn a profit by renting to residents. This system has never covered 100% of shelter needs and has historically been augmented by limited public provision of housing. This system, while imperfect, worked tolerably well during the latter part of the 20th century, but has faltered due to two main reasons: 1) unprecedented restrictions on new construction by both private and public builders and 2) withdrawal of public subsidy for both new construction of public housing and housing vouchers for households with low incomes, and the ineffective replacement of these methods with very limited amounts of low income housing tax credits to spur new construction, and destructive attempts to tax new housing to provide a small amount of subsidized housing through "inclusive zoning". Both are fixable problems.
Investors have adopted a strategy of using "1031 exchanges" to pool tax-free gains as real estate equity, borrowing against that equity, then re-investing the borrowed money in more real estate, in an endless process of acquisition which has changed the value proposition of real estate from that of a basic human need, into a wealth token with high collateral value, along with a much inflated price.
IRC Section 1031 allows tax deferment on investment properties only. This has created a tyranny where landlords pass the ever-increasing costs of servicing their massive loans to the backs of tenants, who effectively pay for these investors' borrowed lifestyles with the extortionary rents they're compelled to pay — not for the lease of high-collateral value wealth tokens, but of a basic human need.
I used the term "plutocracy" loosely, as an emphatic way to describe this sort of "government" of renters, by high net-worth landlords.
Many, if not most, of the new homes inspired with the incentive of public money provided by the acts referred to in this essay, will be purchased by predatory investors who themselves are caught in this Section 1031 cycle of buying, borrowing, selling, buying again, borrowing some more, re-selling, and then re-buying — all for the sake of hoarding value which they then borrow against to fund their lifestyles, as their wealth stays away from the capitalist system, vested in grossly price-inflated, *passive* assets…
A remedy for this would be, of course, to revoke Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code. This would restrict the exploitative consequences of "plutocratic hoarding" of the sort of indispensable need which can be withheld for extortionary rents.
I'll rejoice on the day any government has the courage to do such a thing but, in the meantime, I guess we're stuck with subsidizing equity opportunities for land investors, using public money…
The more housing is built, the less power landlords have to charge extortionate rents. Landlords in Houston aren't less greedy, or more unable to use 1031 exchanges, than landlords in LA or NYC. But they're not able to charge as much in rent, because Houston builds more housing, so there's more competition.