tptacek writes on here sometimes about their activity in local politics. This perspective (from my reading) is that it has a lot of strong support that is difficult to oppose, not that we should give up. Read "give it a year or two" as "give it a year or two of things going as they are".

He also lives in a "nice" suburb of Chicago IIRC

I strongly suspect a neighborhood in Chicago composed of the kind of demographics the "nice" suburb's residents are worried about would have a very different take on the issue.

And by "strongly suspect" I mean "know because I live in that kind of neighborhood in a different city in a different state".