Source: a number of years in Europe. And no, we're not talking skyscrapers, but more 2/3 story developments, perhaps with some businesses on the bottom floor on more frequented streets.
I've lived in Europe. I've lived in the east bay when the whole Fremont to Walnut Creek 680 corridor was orchards and fields. I lived in Almaden Valley when it was orchards.
My definition of built out is simple -- municipalities planned for X, implemented X, and we have X. Getting a community to go to Y, yeah, no.
Thought experiment - enforce denser building (maybe use eminent domain) in Atherton. What do you think will happen? (Extreme example). Apply that to Saratoga, Cupertino, etc. in the more rural residential areas, not the commercial areas. Commercial is building as they can and that won't be enough.
This is nonsense. You can't claim that municipalities are static, when you preface your comment about how the orchards went away. They aren't static. They never were.
I have never seen a claim from anyone who wants to block new housing that actually stood up to the slightest scrutiny. There is only ever one reason why people take this position: homeowners in California are hopelessly hooked on the Free Money™ from ever-increasing home prices. It's like a drug. Get your hands on a house and you're all set. With Prop 13, any risk is almost totally externalized. We see the result in action when cities allow additional office space to be built but not additional housing to go with it. The message is crystal clear: keep those home prices going up; keep the money flowing in. Screw anybody who hasn't bought yet.
When anyone proposes additional housing, all manner of excuses (and ugly accusations) come up: history, neighborhood character, the environment, claims that there are no more places to build, racism, classism, you name it. It's always a smoke screen. They are always lying. Always. None of the people blocking housing care at all about any of those things. It has always been about one and only one thing: the Free Money™. Anyone who says differently is lying.
...claims that there are no more places to build, racism, classism, you name it. It's always a smoke screen. They are always lying. Always. None of the people blocking housing care at all about any of those things.
Are you an aspiring mind reader or do you just enjoy making blanket statements?
I lived in a small 50,000 population Southern Ca. beach town that approved a massive 9000 resident master planned tract home/apartment community in 1999.
Character? It absolutely changed. We went from having essentially no big box stores to a Walmart, which beget more strip mall chains. Previous housing developments weren't on this scale, so yeah I'd argue thousands of semi-generic "tuscan villa" styled homes do change the aesthetics of a town.
Traffic? Went up significantly, as the whole community was built east of the existing city (and beach), meaning the main arteries were now quite full.
Classism/Racism? Doubtful. The town wasn't pristine to begin with. The majority of these new homes were more expensive than the existing housing stock complete with golf courses and swim clubs.
So now what?
More roads got built to alleviate traffic, a new outlet mall, new construction alongside the new roads. It's not helpful to act like these concerns are fake. California is a gorgeous state.
Not everyone wants to carve up every last canyon in the sake of making a miniature Irvine (or any strip mall, master planned lookalike community).
Of course some of these concerns are real. But your last statement could also be phrased "not everyone wants to change anything, in order to give people places to live".
Well then municipalities will have to plan for X rising to Y and plan for and implement Y. Civic planning doesn't have to get frozen in time and population.
You get them to conform by passing laws at the state level to take power away from the local residents. I know they wont comply, we have already seen the problems that giving local control creates in this scenario, so the solution is to make a decision for the larger and long term good.
Well sure they will fight, but thats not a good enough reason to not do something. Hopefully the state government has enough political capital to deal with the fight that the relatively small population of homeowners will put up.
The hell it is!
Source: a number of years in Europe. And no, we're not talking skyscrapers, but more 2/3 story developments, perhaps with some businesses on the bottom floor on more frequented streets.