Zoning laws affect what you can build where. But a quicker route to increasing the supply of homes (this lowering prices) is to levy high taxes on single family homes that the owner does not live in.
Single family homes have become an investment opportunity for corporations and wealthy individuals. When vast sums find their way into a market, prices can go up sharply. Corporations, private equity funds, and the like cannot inhabit a home. And a person can only inhabit one primary residence (>50%). So if people (or companies) want to own homes as rental properties, they’d pay higher taxes. Some would sell those extra homes, reducing Demand and putting them on the market, increasing supply. The additional taxes some would pay to keep the extra single family homes could fund housing-related programs like section 8, redevelopment of depressed areas and so forth.
Can anyone with experience in housing policy with in? Would this work? Aside from pissing off rich people?
Perhaps, but the prevalence of single family homes is a huge problem itself. They generally bring in less in tax dollars than they cost the city to maintain, since it’s more road, sidewalk, sewer, etc. for one household. My tax dollars as someone who lives in a multifamily building subsidize others in my city who have one household on much larger properties. I don’t want these people to have more tax breaks and incentivize more of that to be built.
No, it wasn’t. They were saying the TAXING STRUCTURE for single family homes NEAR CITIES or close suburbs is bad. Single family homes out in the country or in smaller towns are fine. The density isn’t needed there. Single family homes in suburbs could be fine, if the taxes paid for denser housing that is needed to support a larger city. People in New York are able to live in the city because of dense housing availability or easy access to commuter trains to get farther out where less dense housing exists. People in Los Angeles/Houston/Atlanta don’t have great public transport options AND don’t have much high density housing, so the sprawl is horrendous (along with the associated car traffic). If the taxes for single family homes in Los Angeles were higher than for condos/townhouses, then the city could fund either higher density housing (which are actually banned by local zoning laws in some neighborhoods, since nobody wants an apartment building next to their single family home) or better public transport for people living farther out of the city.
Lol are you my wife? She’s like, “We need space so we’re not looking into the neighbor’s windows.”
And 100% of the time, I think she’s implicitly opting to pay an additional 2-3 hundred thousand dollars (where we are) just to be on an .5 acres of land, living on 15% of that half acre, and utilizing like 5% of it on a daily basis.
We don’t need that much space. We shouldn’t be laid on top of one another like sardines in a can, but we also don’t need to waste as much space as we do for real comfort and fake status. There’s a lot of transformation between the urban dispersion of the Southwest (where I live and everything is far away from everything else) and the urban density of Manhattan.
So your wife sees at as simply a status thing it sounds like, that is stupid. I need space because I have dogs, I like to have backyard parties, and I genuinely think I would hate my life if I opened my front door into a hallway.
I also hate big cities. Anything over 20k is too much population for my liking.
Further: legalizing density doesn’t mean that you personally are forced into them. There will always be a market for detached single family homes, especially if you don’t value being in a city anyway.
This is a huge problem with suburban devlopments (single family homes, strip malls, box stores). Almost all of them rely on denser parts of the cities to maintain themselves. Unlike the denser parts of cities, the commercial zoning often struggles when the original business leaves, unlike denser areas that are more flexible. Not only do these developments cost more to build and maintain, they often don’t provide for as long and can be costly/resistant to redevelpment due to suburban zoning and NIMBYism.
The issue is there’s nothing stopping house owners from increasing the rent they charge to cover their costs. There needs to be enforced rent control in order for the profit margin to be squeezed.
That’s a different argument. The point here is that extra money (even if it is paid by the renter) then goes into the city funds to build more high density housing and more public transit to get from lower density areas to the higher density areas.
The consequences of that would be tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people like me quickly losing their place to live. Lots of people can only afford to live right now because they're fortunate enough to know somebody with a second place which they can rent at below market rates. Most of the neighborhood I live in was bought and built in the late 80s, and is now the de facto retirement plan for dozens of military members who bought these places. No one idea fixes anything entirely, but I think the zoning ideas are the most widely and quickly effective, without destroying lives of average people.
Home prices without corporate/wealthy investments would quickly fall due to the increase in supply and a decrease in the purchasing power of the average buyer. They would eventually stabilize at prices that people like you could afford.
Rent for multi-unit buildings would also fall as more renters could afford to buy a home.
Those who purchased homes as rental units would still be able to recoup most of their investment by selling the place. They could then invest somewhere that is not hoarding resources and causing other people to suffer.
You wouldn’t lose your place to live. Your place to live would become for sale on the open market for someone like you to buy, and if tens (hundreds?) of thousands of those places went up for sale at once then someone like you could afford to buy it. Having necessary housing for other humans be a retirement plan is kinda fucked up.
He’s not using the I didn’t know it was wrong defense (that was earlier) but the my lawyers told me it was fine defense (his previous lawyers, not these two).
So, I don’t think these statements matter to his current defensive strategy.
Honest question, is that a defense that has ever actually worked for crimes this serious? I can understand something like “Your honor, I totally thought I could park there because a police officer said it was fine, but then the parking enforcement wrote me a ticket!” But not “Your honor, a very Bigly smart man said I could totally disenfranchise all of America and it is very cool and very legal!”
It was a trap by the special counsel set by… getting him to hire terrible attorneys? I would think that more a consequence of the magnitude of his crimes + his history of nonpayment, leaving only desperate lawyers willing to be the next in line trying to defend one of the most obvious criminals in recent history and humiliating themselves in the process
I have a feeling this is intentional. These statements can be used as evidence and it gets him off the case for which he probably realized he’s never getting paid and his client is a moron.
I doubt it would be an effective strategy at this point. The lawyers are literally just doing what Trump instructs them to do - often after telling him very clearly that it’s a stupid idea. Not sure how well “My lawyer didn’t tell me that was illegal loudly enough” is going to fly.
Back in the day, a troll would manipulate people into embarassing themselves or getting into arguements, then walk away from the shitshow they'd caused.
These 'trolls' do the equivalent of shit in their pants for attention.
It’s such a shame. Good trolls are slow burns, and most most importantly they’re not personally invested in the topic. Honestly I compare it to comedy. A comic is on stage and points out something about a topic that on its face is comedic but then you stop and think and realize the absurdity of it and that absurdity is why it’s comedic in the first place. A good troll is one that starts an argument between people who share beliefs and it should develop in such a way that people can take a step back and realize the absurdity of what they’re arguing about. It should result in growth for all the parties and observers involved to realize that they’re arguing over stupid meaningless stuff and that there are bigger problems than whatever they’ve spent who knows how long bickering about.
But it’s just developed into snatching low hanging fruit and simply getting a rise out of people by simply saying slurs or bigoted comments.
He doesn’t care what happens in court because unless he is sentenced before he takes office, he doesn’t even have to figure out if he can pardon himself. And in that sense, more is not better. 3 (or 4) strong cases against him on Jan 20th doesn’t matter because he can just tell his AG to keep firing people until this goes away.
He doesn’t have to win in court, he has to to win the election.
As someone from NJ and recently took a trip with a friend in his Tesla, no. Most likely because the law never included language for it because it never existed when it was put in place. I also doubt anyone is going to adjust this either not only because it is stupid to do so but because NJ has even had some rumblings in the past few years about ditching attendants and will most likely happen someday, just who knows how soon.
If enough people love it, then full service pumps will still hang around as an option. Personally as someone who lived in Minneapolis for 20 years, full service pumps would have been fucking amazing in the winter, but mandating them by law is just stupid.
The fact that full service doesn’t exist even in the frozen tundra of MN leads me to believe very few people are actually willing to pay extra for it.
If enough people love it, then full service pumps will still hang around as an option.
Yes we all know that companies never cut out extras to reduce costs. That is why flying domestic gets better every year, when video games are released they have been properly QAed and dont need to be patched. I remember when I was a kid you had to bag and scan your groceries yourself, now every store has all these open registers where people do that for you.
Corporate world is like this as well. Back in the day I had to answer my own calls, we didn’t have security or IT, or receptionists, or secretaries, and you had to make your own coffee. Now, I go to work in my nice office (thank goodness cubicals and open office are gone) and there are so many support staff to keep me focused on getting stuff done.
I am positive that a product that is effectively irreplaceable will be the same way.
A full service option is mandated by law. This new law just means we can choose self serve now. The rules are different in rural Oregon where, due to the vast distances, especially in eastern Oregon, not being able to get gas can be legitimately dangerous.
Companies tend to lower extras to lower costs. Once they do that the needle moves and that becomes acceptable.
Grocery stores used to offer free shop for you services. They don’t anymore. They used to have multiple registers open they usually have about two now. They used to bag for you, they don’t anymore. They used to rig you up now they expect you to do it. Heck in my state they don’t even give you bags anymore.
If people were willing to pay what it cost for those services, they would still be commonplace.
Blame the people who will drive across town to save 10 cents on a can of soup as much as the companies who have found competing on price to be a viable strategy.
You can still fly with plenty of luxury and service, but you’re going to pay more than a cheap coach seat. I can go to a store where my groceries are bagged for me, but their prices are higher than Aldi, where bags are not provided. I can get custom steaks cut to my liking, but it’s going to cost me well north of the pre cut steaks at Costco.
Who knows if full service will stick around. If it costs and extra $.50 or $1.00/gal to fill up, are more than a tiny fraction of people going to pay for it? Probably not, but at least people aren’t being forced to pay for a service they don’t value.
Also, how about electric vehicle charging? Do these attendants have to plug the car in for you? Just a matter of time before gasoline cars are obsolete.
No it’s actually cheaper than Washington and California prices. Companies aren’t going to lower their prices just because their costs went down. That isn’t how the gasoline market works.
Doesn’t apply to electric vehicles here in Oregon. At this point, the law just remained because people like not having to pump their own gas and it creates jobs. I’ve pumped my own gas plenty of times in other states and it honestly isn’t any faster. The longest I’ve ever had to wait for gas was at a station in NorCal where everyone wanted to go stretch their legs for 30 minutes inside the store before coming out to pump their gas.
Currently, I fill up twice a week and never wait more than 5 minutes even with one attendant working.
I see this change as a way for fuel companies to increase their profits while sticking the work on customers. Nobody is going to reduce their price when people were willing to pay the current ‘higher’ price. The gas/oil industry doesn’t exist inside a normal capitalist market (much like healthcare).
Obviously you’ve never had the misfortune of going to the 7-11 station in Hillsboro.
Also, not being able to pump our own gas is why most of our gas stations aren’t open 24-7, which sucks for working people who often have to leave home early in the AM before the gas stations are open. If you forgot to fill up the day before? Forget about it, you’re going to be late to work.
That’s nice, but I’m talking about Oregon, not NJ which is far more densely populated and accordingly is a very different place. I can get a freshly made sammich here in Portland at 3am too, I just can’t get gas.
And that’s the thing. The densely populated areas are paying taxes and dealing with the CO2 output of the rural areas that we subsidize.
The whole sons of the soil, oversized pickup trucks, farmer cosplay lifestyle can only exist because of the federal government. You can’t manage without gas for your pickup? Well, maybe you should do what the rest of us do and move to an area where you can use public transportation.
Electric vehicle charging is usually done at places you stop for a while, like department store parking lots. I don’t see the stations at gas stations much at all
And they were never governed by the gas station laws
I don’t understand anyone who says there’s long waits, because I never have that problem, even when it’s crowded. Conversely, when I lived in the midwest, I would have to wait for people to finish taking their sweet time paying inside before I could get to the pump.
Here we have an attendant who handles the pump and most people don’t even get out of their car. They just drive away when it’s done.
Anyhow, it’s not a big deal to me either way. I don’t mind that there’s people being paid for that, because our gas prices don’t seem higher for it compared to our neighbors. But I also wouldn’t terribly mind getting out and pumping it myself either
Guess your card payments must work differently there, we have to put the PIN in whether it’s a credit or debit card. Unless you’re paying via contactless.
It depends on the station. Some are well staffed and you rarely wait more than a minute or two. Others, not so much. I know of one such station in Hillsboro. Many times I just get out and pump it myself rather than waiting the five or ten minutes it takes them to do it.
I grew up in WA state but have been in Oregon for 20 years now. I’ve become accustomed to someone pumping my gas, but it’ll be like it was. I guess I don’t understand the big deal either way.
I was about to say. I appreciate every time they agree to pump my gas. The convenience, and the speed of just staying in your car is awesome!
Pick a better gas station is what I have to say to people that are upset at how the service was at one gas station.
Having grown up in the east, and the size of MEGA GAS STATIONS that let cars just SIT PARKED IN THE GAS STALL was the true goal of this bill. It was about commercializing the “store” because there is no profit in the gas industry.
I’ll still search out and return to gas stations that employ attendants.
How is having one attendant pumping gas for six vehicles faster than me pumping my own?
Answer; it’s not. Source; I live in Oregon. Fun fact; due in part to this law, Oregon has relatively far fewer gas stations than other states, so picking another station often is not a viable option.
I guess there is a difference in frequency. I fill up once every two weeks, at 510 miles to the tank. I tend to do it when I run an errand near a gas station that has the best quality gas, and the best prices. I tend to see the same attendants, and they are always on top of every car there, and have mine filling in no time flat.
I do recognize that in the east, many cars would pull up and get only $5 in gas, very quickly, and then drive away. I get that scheduling a moment to stop and let someone fuel up your rocket-ship is a a little more of a hassle. But the last many years living in Oregon have been a blessing I’ll continue to look for.
Thankfully attendants will still be available, and there is no penalty to the customer for getting “Full Service”, so we both can get what we desire.
I live in Oregon most of my life. I moved to Montana for work for a period of time and moved back to Oregon. I absolutely hate having my gas pumped. I found it so much quicker to pump my own gas. Though when I traveled to and from Montana I noted there are a lot of idiots that don’t know how to responsibly pump their own gas. The only time where I somewhat even remotely hated pumping my own gas was when living in Montana and pumping when it’s -30F outside.
I love having it done for me. It helps that I have fuel efficient vehicle that I only use when other methods aren’t practical. Get gas once every month or so and get to sit back in air-conditioning.
I fuckin’hate it. Most people I know hate it. I know maybe a handful of people who like it, but they are the exception. In any case, we still have the full-serve option, except for in rural Oregon.
What’s the point of the reenactment? Peterson was a coward, that’s clear, and the court already gave him a pass for being a coward, so why even pretend to care and do tests and reenactments
The fact that the sanctity of such a place must be enshrined into law in order for capitalists to abstain from raping it tells you everything you need to know about the system.
Questions like: Who is OpenAI and how does live in my telephone? Can OpenAI serve me crackers, also what day is it? Why does OpenAI suggest Furry porn when I google furry porn?
Lawmakers, most lawmakers, barely remember to take their medications much less have the mental capacity to understand what AI or LLMs are. It’s laughable/frightening to think our congressional octogenarians are writing laws and restrictions on anything pertaining to technology.
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