Monday, October 2, 2017

Cities ignore housing needs of the lower classes

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/oct/02/rise-of-the-yimbys-angry-millennials-radical-housing-solution

"The birthplace of the yimby movement, the San Francisco Bay Area, has among the highest rents in America. It added 307,000 jobs between 2010 and 2013, but built fewer than 40,000 new housing units, according to state of California estimates.
'It’s clear that this is a housing shortage – and the answer is to build housing,' says Laura Foote Clark, who heads San Francisco-based Yimby Action. 'You generate policy by yelling about things.'
Clark and other members of yimby groups consider themselves progressives and environmentalists, but they’re not afraid to throw the occasional firebomb into the usual liberal alliances. They frequently take aim at space-hogging, single-family homeowners and confound anti-capitalist groups by daring to take the side of developers, even luxury condo developers. They have started a 'sue the suburbs' campaign that targets cities that don’t approve big housing projects and have even attempted to take over the board of the local Sierra Club."

Cities need to keep all their citizens in mind during planning, not just the wealthy.

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