> The only reasonable way for them to be entitled to prevent density is for them to own the property and not build anything.

Of course.

> Well then those people should buy the land and keep it low density. Can't afford it? Too bad. Pro-housing folks aren't trying to force people to do something with their property, it's the other way around.

Pro-housing people in my area absolutely are trying to force people to do things with their property and in their neighborhood by barring covenants and other restrictions that can be put in place by municipalities and HOAs.

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hamburglar 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Barring restrictions is absolutely not “forcing” anyone to do anything. Take away all restrictions on my lot and I am still not forced to develop on it.

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ratelimitsteve 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

A law negating a covenant everyone entered into willingly and freely does kinda alter the deal after its made. I do wholeheartedly agree that removing zoning restrictions doesn't impinge on anyone's liberty though.

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wqaatwt 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> and freely

If that was the case i.e. nobody wanted to build anything new on their land why would the “convenant” be necessary. Or is the idea that former owners can impose these decisions they made on anyone they sell the property to?

	▲	ratelimitsteve 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		We allow all sorts of encumbrances to transfer with property. You can sell a house with an easement that lets neighbors use some amount of your property for access, with a tenant who has a contractual right to stay to the end of a lease regardless of what the new owner wants, or with a covenant to limit development. Hell, a couple years back an entire mall sold for $20 with the agreement that the buyer was assuming all of the seller's debt and also the seller's contractual obligation to perform road maintenance. If you couldn't transfer these agreements with a sale they'd be useless even absent a sale. Either no one would buy the property because its unsellable and the value would plummet or you would buy it with the encumbrances, transfer ownership from your left hand to your right hand to remove them and then do what you want.

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tptacek 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Covenants are already heavily regulated and have a pretty icky history in the US.

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bpt3 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Let me know your address so I can buy the adjacent properties and force you to live next to a landfill or move away from your now-worthless home.

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hamburglar 3 days ago | parent [-]

It may surprise you but I’m not actually scared of that happening. I’m actually zoned for the house next door to me to turn into a seven story building, which many in my city think is horrifying, but I’m not scared of that either.

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bpt3 2 days ago | parent [-]

If you legitimately would have no issues being surrounded by a landfill, you're such an outlier that your opinion is basically meaningless.

	▲	hamburglar a day ago \| parent [-]
		You’re jumping to conclusions. I didn’t say I wouldn’t have any issue with it; I said I’m not scared it’s going to happen. I have evaluated the risk and am sufficiently certain that won’t happen. The lots around my house are far too expensive to turn into landfill.

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msteffen 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Honestly the biggest reason I became a pro-density advocate is because low-density communities are almost always tax-revenue-negative[1], given that the cost of things like roads, water and sewer infrastructure scale with land area. What NIMBYs often seem to want are the amenities of city living (like a sewer instead of a septic tank in your yard) without the people, and that just doesn’t work.

[1]: https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI

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ndriscoll 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The suburbs I've lived in have spent far more on things that scale with population (primarily education) than things that scale with area. You also can't split revenue from downtown commercial areas out from surrounding residential like that. Are businesses "subsidizing" residents? Of course not. That doesn't even make sense as a question.

	▲	3 days ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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bpt3 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Posting a video from a highly biased source is not very convincing.

Almost every household with a child is tax revenue negative, and I don't think you're suggesting we reform education funding to correct that.

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msteffen 2 days ago | parent [-]

Look, the people making this argument all come from a fairly aligned political unit. If you start hearing this perspective from a broad coalition of ideologically diverse groups, it would mean the thesis has become consensus. I agree with you that the guy's tone is not great, so here's a slightly different framing: https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/17/sprawl-is-... (strong towns' emphasis is on ending federal infrastructure loans that leave cities and suburbs with infrastructure they don't have the tax base to maintain over a generation. Which I think leads to similar conclusions but they're careful not to say that).

Their framing also highlights the important financial difference between children and sewers, though: the former get less expensive and more productive over time, and the latter do the opposite, which is how the problems happen.

	▲	bpt3 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm a big fan of StrongTowns and this is the article that NotjustBikes used as a launching point for the specific episode of fuckcars porn that you posted: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017-1-9-the-real-reason... Fiscal soundness at the local level should not be a political issue, but IMO the progressive left has turned it into one by attacking anyone and everyone who isn't in rigid alignment with every element of their housing agenda, which includes some pretty radical (and largely undesirable) changes for most Americans. And then of course when people balk at these undesirable changes, they're called racist, selfish, or both. I don't agree that you can really claim one part of town is subsidizing others based on the analysis from firms like urban3. Sure, if you stuck 10 businesses on a plot of land where only 1 exists now and those businesses all thrive, tax revenue would be higher for that plot of land. Is there demand for 10 more businesses in your city or town, times every drive thru fast food joint or Starbucks? Is it actually a problem that businesses are paying more in taxes than they consume in services, which lets residents pay less than they consume? Would those businesses be there if their owners couldn't live in the type of housing they wanted in the city? There are so many intertwined issues that seem impossible to decouple to me, in addition to the obvious issue that the school system is the primary consumer of tax revenue in almost every area and the taxes paid by parents don't come close to covering that expense. It's also not a coincidence that they picked an economically depressed area with a fairly high crime rate for this analysis. If they looked at a city with residents who made the median household income for the US, or even above it, I suspect you'd see a very different picture (though the larger point is still worth considering and largely valid). I do agree completely that the federal and state governments are just setting these places up for failure (and future rounds of external funding), but I don't see YIMBYs talking about that. They just seem to be angry that people are living more comfortably than they would like in lower density housing instead of embracing the urban lifestyle they are so passionate about, and want to force everyone to align to their vision not for fiscal stability, but for ideological reasons.