"build more housing" is the single most important thing we can do to combat a further rightward drift of the electorate what do you think is going to happen as climate migration accelerates
Replies
My least-favorite stat about these sunbelt migrations is Beto outperformed Ted Cruz among native Texans back in 2018. I don’t have any real proof, but my suspicion is the lack of new housing on the west coast and northeast has pushed those people to the GOP www.newsweek.com/more-native-...
aug 25, 2025, 5:38 pm • 0 0 • view
sorry but with this also has to come social housing. building more houses so they can be bought by blackrock in bulk does nothing to solve the housing crisis
aug 25, 2025, 4:45 pm • 6 1 • view
People still live in the homes BlackRock builds or buys. But the best way to get BlackRock et al out the housing biz? Make it suck as an investment by building shitloads of homes. They even say so in their financial filings!
aug 25, 2025, 5:15 pm • 8 0 • view
this is dumb. who is affording to buy a house in this market which is controlled by corporate landlords like blackrock? you don't live in reality
aug 25, 2025, 5:28 pm • 3 0 • view
You are the one living in an alternate reality. First, BlackRock doesn’t own any housing, you are thinking of Blackstone. Second, institutions own less than 1% of single-family homes in the United States. “Corporate landlords” don’t control the housing market.
aug 25, 2025, 5:31 pm • 3 0 • view
whatever blackstone, blackrock. you are still wrong. landlords and corporate landlords are dictating the housing market which means most americans cant save for a mortgage.
aug 25, 2025, 5:51 pm • 0 0 • view
Nope. Most Americans (2/3) live in a home they/their family own. It’s these same stakeholders that have slowed down production of new homes over the last 20+ years to protect “neighborhood character”, not the corporate landlords that, again, own less than 1% of SFHs
aug 25, 2025, 5:54 pm • 4 0 • view
what is not dictating the housing market - Blackstone what is dictating the housing market - single family zoning - Euclidean zoning - lot size minimums - parking mandates - height limits - sqft minimums - floor area ratio - setback mandates - lot coverage maximums - occupancy limits
aug 25, 2025, 6:08 pm • 7 0 • view
(cont) - high permit fees - manufactured home bans - RV bans - rooming house bans - aesthetic mandates - units-per-acre caps - conditional use permits for normal housinf - adu restrictions - lot width/frontage minimums - demolition/“conservation” overlays
aug 25, 2025, 6:08 pm • 6 0 • view
Yup. Minimum lot sizes are wild. I can go 15 mi north of Boston and find myself in Swampscott, which requires a lot be at least 10,000 square feet in order to build one (1) house on it. Meanwhile, you can easily build a 3 decker (that’s at least 3 homes) on 2500 sq ft. Grossly exclusionary shit.
aug 25, 2025, 6:10 pm • 5 0 • view
So many Americans basically think "I can't believe housing is so unaffordable, I want MY exclusionary zoned single family home with a big yard" and not see a single thing wrong with that mindset
aug 25, 2025, 6:20 pm • 2 0 • view
We were all promised our very own English manor home, complete with ½ acre of empty space around it, for the cost of two wadded up dollar bills & a tap dance routine. Alas, geometry has much to say about suburban sprawl & it turns out each of us getting our own fiefdom fucks up society!
aug 25, 2025, 7:15 pm • 0 0 • view
A lot of people don't live in single family homes, how much of the apartment and condo market is owned by institutions?
aug 26, 2025, 3:50 am • 1 0 • view
Most, but what difference does that make? Do you think an individual with $10s of millions is going to be a better apartment landlord than a corporation? Regardless, apartment buildings have always been owned by large developers, this is the status quo
aug 26, 2025, 11:50 am • 0 0 • view
the status quo is evil are you aware of that
aug 26, 2025, 1:09 pm • 0 0 • view
I don’t think this is right. Even Vienna has been forced to move back to public-private partnerships to build new housing since the social housing from the early to mid 20th century was predicated on free land (taken from the expelled Jews and families who died/fled in WWI)
aug 26, 2025, 1:44 pm • 1 0 • view
Most of the rental apartment market is owned by small landlords. Only 13% is owned by large landlords (>1000 properties) nationwide. The status quo is “mom & pop” own most rentals.
aug 26, 2025, 2:04 pm • 0 0 • view
I think this is true but a bit deceptive to the average person since you are counting LP/LLP/LLC as a “mom & pop” operation
aug 26, 2025, 2:16 pm • 0 0 • view
@kindredspirit.bsky.social if it helps, I shared this in another branch of this convo: bsky.app/profile/thej... As for the status quo being evil, I once again have to remind that whatever evilness is being perpetrated in housing, is almost entirely being done by homeowners. Sucks but there it is!
aug 26, 2025, 2:06 pm • 0 0 • view
right well we’re arguing from fundamentally different positions. you think the status quo (white supremacist imperialist capitalism) is good. i think it is the main reason for all the evils in this world. this debate is meaningless and you’re part of the problem
aug 26, 2025, 2:42 pm • 0 0 • view
This is silly. Socialism certainly didn’t deliver a superior standard of living, housing or otherwise, compared to capitalism, neither one century ago with the Soviets nor the contemporary experiment in Venezuela.
aug 26, 2025, 2:46 pm • 0 0 • view
They own a mere ~4% of all single family houses nationwide. They only own ~13% of all rental homes nationwide. They don’t control the market, owner-occupants & small landlords do. Please mind the facts before claiming they control things.
aug 25, 2025, 5:27 pm • 1 0 • view
13% is a huge amount of property you are aware of that right? thats more than other private landlords (who are also the problem)
aug 25, 2025, 5:51 pm • 1 0 • view
Uh, no, it’s not. 87% is a hell of a lot more than 13%. To give you an idea, in Boston alone, there are over 1400 landlords. There’s a few exceptions, like Atlanta, but broadly, they just don’t exert much control. It’s a canard to worry about them much. NIMBYs are far more problematic!
aug 25, 2025, 6:03 pm • 2 0 • view
13% that goes back on the market as rentals. You know what investors hate? risk. You know what would be great to make investors steer away from housing? If it wasn't a guarenteed investment. If you couldn't control what gets built near you and had to risk your home value going down.
aug 25, 2025, 6:25 pm • 1 0 • view
It's so wierd that you framed that as a counterpoint. "Yes I agree! We should be building so many more homes. Let's allow the people who build social housing to build tons more homes!" The barriers stopping market and non market housing from being built are the same barroers
aug 25, 2025, 6:03 pm • 0 0 • view
This is absolutely the issue we’re facing in the UK as well
aug 25, 2025, 4:06 pm • 3 0 • view
"Let the private housing market carry on unfettered" is... not going to fix anything.
aug 25, 2025, 4:14 pm • 1 0 • view
Living in a blue city in a blue state, I keep trying to evangelize to the normies that if you actually care about human rights and freedom the only possible stance is “build more housing here right fucking now”
aug 25, 2025, 3:55 pm • 157 12 • view
living in a blue city in a deeply red state: same
aug 25, 2025, 4:04 pm • 5 0 • view
also, endlessly fucking frustrating that we have a LOT of vacant properties owned by neglectful, greedy developers that could be *housing people right now*, including victims of the May EF3 tornado that STILL has lots of folks sleeping in tents and under tarps.
aug 25, 2025, 4:05 pm • 8 1 • view
I really hate how the "omg Californian transplants in Texas will turn the state purple" paranoia didn't become true.
aug 25, 2025, 4:14 pm • 5 0 • view
All the elderly people and retired cops I knew who moved to states like AZ and TX did so because CA was “too liberal” so that fear was always backwards, imo. If anything, blue state migrants were and are turning those states and FL more red 🙃
aug 25, 2025, 4:16 pm • 5 0 • view
Even if you aren't some raging chud but got displaced by housing policies in your Dem run city in California, seems like a really big assumption that you'll keep voting blue in Texas and not have bad feelings toward the Dems for making you uproot your life!
aug 25, 2025, 4:17 pm • 2 0 • view
I'm trans so it's honestly guaranteed I'll always vote for the party that wants me killed the less but I honestly can't blame someone who has to leave the West Coast or Northeast holding a grudge against the Dems and becoming conservative once they arrive into NC or GA
aug 25, 2025, 4:18 pm • 2 0 • view
Plus even if they don't actually hold a grudge a lot of people are extremely malleable on their politics based on what they perceive their community's politics to be, simply placing them in deep red areas is likely to turn them Republican just by cultural assimilation.
aug 25, 2025, 4:33 pm • 5 0 • view
Likewise if you have to move from an urban walking city to a SFH drive everywhere suburb, living in the city is likely making you more liberal just by constantly dealing with different types of people, while car dependent sprawl suburbs are basically designed to create paranoid reactionary people.
aug 25, 2025, 4:33 pm • 4 0 • view
there are *certain* lots i see driving around that drive me insane that they're not full of multi-story apartment buildings. either no one will do it or they're trapped in planning hell.
aug 25, 2025, 3:59 pm • 46 1 • view
Survey after survey comes out about “how many San Diegans have moved away or plan to move away soon” and the answer all of them give is “housing costs too much, I can’t afford it” That’s a problem with an answer! We can fix this
aug 25, 2025, 4:02 pm • 51 4 • view
Side eyeing bay park here
aug 27, 2025, 5:52 pm • 1 0 • view
credit where due: new build in golden hill next to the 5, the east village buildup, all the new mission valley construction. not due: large complex north of balboa at the 5, trolley stop at clairemont dr & the 5, clairemont town sq housing plan - all stuck in development hell, all transit adjacent
aug 25, 2025, 4:05 pm • 12 1 • view
I live in at the intersection of Cortez Hill/East Village and seeing the build up has been beautiful. This used to be a parking lot, and now look at her 🥹
aug 25, 2025, 4:10 pm • 30 1 • view
my first place here long time ago was at 14th and broadway. it was a ghost town walking home from the bars, empty lots and abandoned buildings. now you'd be walking past bars, restaurants, parks, and apartments. its great. needs more, and we need more shelter space.
aug 25, 2025, 4:12 pm • 10 0 • view
I’ve been following this project closely and really hope it pans out
aug 25, 2025, 4:14 pm • 13 0 • view
id love to see the space by the airport approved as well, that some terrible people got shut down - or paused ? - last year
aug 25, 2025, 4:16 pm • 4 0 • view
Bunch of rich assholes from Mission Hills and Point Loma have been organizing to block any housing and any homeless services anywhere near them and we need to start pushing back
aug 25, 2025, 4:17 pm • 11 0 • view
cc: @scottwiener.bsky.social strong SB 79 candidates here.
aug 25, 2025, 4:27 pm • 1 0 • view
yeah but we need our biannual fireworks and/or xmas tree sale lot
aug 25, 2025, 4:41 pm • 3 0 • view
TN having more population than MA lives rent free in my head.
aug 25, 2025, 4:00 pm • 3 0 • view
How are nimbys making it so land is so expensive, borrowing is so expensive, building materials are so expensive in most coastal cities? These are big reasons that people who aren’t doing enough building say they are not building. It’s not as profitable as it needs to be for them to do it.
aug 25, 2025, 5:55 pm • 1 0 • view
It 'only' took 15% of Syria's population migrating from dried up farms to the cities to destroy what was once considered a stable government.
aug 25, 2025, 4:36 pm • 2 0 • view
agreed. but just not right here because traffic is really bad. probably over there is ok though.
aug 25, 2025, 9:44 pm • 2 0 • view
gentrification being crystallized in urban leftists' brains as a problem of development and not *lack* of development has put us back 20 years I'm always yelling at people here who lament the loss of "old/weird boulder" when new housing goes up. WHY DO YOU THINK OLD BOULDER LEFT IN THE FIRST PLACE
aug 25, 2025, 4:15 pm • 33 3 • view
That meme of “this is why Lenin shot everybody” is what I think of when it comes to left-nimbys and degrowthers.
aug 25, 2025, 4:25 pm • 9 1 • view
It is also probably the single best way to actually address the “birth rate” question!
aug 25, 2025, 3:51 pm • 19 0 • view
Unemployment and crime are at near historic lows and anti-immigrant sentiment continues to be high. Not sure material conditions gave rise to our current fascism. Seems more like consistent effective organizing on the right and ongoing flaccid response by oppo groups as the cause
aug 25, 2025, 6:53 pm • 0 0 • view
Strong agreement. I think the political problem for Democrats is the fear that affordable housing drives down property values. Personally I don’t give a fuck, I am more interested in the possibility of my home existing in a stable society than higher resale value.
aug 25, 2025, 4:09 pm • 15 1 • view
Honestly, if someone bet their life savings into a house as their only retirement plan, I'm sorry, but that's foolish. I really don't understand the people who say it's "impossible to stabilize rent" who also buy a house to avoid paying rent. Like, they just proved that it isn't economically needed?
aug 26, 2025, 3:46 am • 1 0 • view
transit too. car culture promotes individualism, transit promotes community
aug 25, 2025, 8:50 pm • 0 0 • view
This is the primary reason Mamdani’s mayoral campaign is so successful. Other than rich people, everyone else knows the rent is too damned high.
aug 25, 2025, 4:44 pm • 11 2 • view
The rent is too damn high guy has prevailed RIP
aug 25, 2025, 5:57 pm • 3 0 • view
"Build more housing" is also a highly recommended climate mitigation strategy in the latest IPCC report
aug 25, 2025, 3:51 pm • 29 1 • view
I think there will be a civil war, one way or another, this century, as a result of climate migration. Maybe sooner than anyone expects!
aug 25, 2025, 4:53 pm • 2 0 • view
Why does building more housing matter? Don't you already have some 15 empty homes for every homeless person?
aug 25, 2025, 9:45 pm • 0 0 • view
Not in places that matter in this context
aug 31, 2025, 6:50 am • 0 0 • view
But but but Ben Shapiro told me I could just sell my house that is a foot deep in seawater and hasn't had insurance for 20 years?
aug 25, 2025, 4:47 pm • 2 0 • view
I think banning corporate ownership of single family homes is the greatest thing we could do for housing. We could build a bunch of homes, but if corporations keep outbidding individuals for them, we end up being a society of renters. It's all part of the subscription based economy we have become.
aug 25, 2025, 5:32 pm • 2 0 • view
no you got it all wrong, we just gotta ban, uh, investors /s
aug 25, 2025, 6:33 pm • 0 0 • view
Yep, and we need to legalize many forms of housing that are currently zoned out of existence, like: micro-apartments, tiny houses, mobile home parks, mixed use buildings etc.
aug 25, 2025, 4:22 pm • 9 0 • view
Yes, absolutely. But also the right kind of housing in the right places (i.e., where people need it), and sold / rented to people who need it, rather than as investments.
aug 25, 2025, 4:11 pm • 2 1 • view
People think this is decades away, but it’s ALREADY HAPPENING.
aug 25, 2025, 6:33 pm • 1 0 • view
We need to build a Mr. Rogers political movement: I want you to be my neighbor
aug 25, 2025, 4:15 pm • 18 2 • view
The YIMBY groups in some cities are called “Neighbors for More Neighbors”.
aug 25, 2025, 4:35 pm • 14 0 • view
I mentioned this before but it’s like completely foreign to those of us in very red NE FL that new homes can’t be built in like 4 months. Neighborhoods are going up so fast it’s hard to even recognize a lot of places around here any more.
aug 25, 2025, 8:42 pm • 0 0 • view
We got plenty of housing already! It’s just that none of them should be THIS level of expensive, period! You see housing districts shoot up with cheap material and yet cost 300K at minimum. They’re ripping us off and have for years!!
aug 25, 2025, 5:58 pm • 0 0 • view
And I’m talking like single family housing residential areas in suburbs. 1-2 floors and whatever square footage.
aug 25, 2025, 6:01 pm • 0 0 • view
But other kinds count too.
aug 25, 2025, 6:02 pm • 0 0 • view
Inland New Jersey and uphill Long Island NIMBYs are going lose their goddamn minds when we get to a point when managed retreat from shorelines needs to become mandatory.
aug 25, 2025, 4:18 pm • 7 1 • view
We're not managing shoreline retreat any better than we're managing wildland fires impacting urban interfaces. Buildings get destroyed and then there's a lot of head scratching because people want to build back exactly what got trashed by climate effects.
aug 25, 2025, 8:18 pm • 0 0 • view
*more housing where indoor temperatures don't reach 50C in summer
aug 25, 2025, 4:27 pm • 0 0 • view
FWIW - a person living in Phoenix has a smaller carbon footprint than a person living in Minneapolis. It’s counter-intuitive, but air conditioning is much more efficient than heating. Moving families from NYC, CHI, etc. to the sunbelt is carbon-negative. www.citycarbonfootprints.info
aug 25, 2025, 5:34 pm • 2 0 • view
The biggest issue in Phoenix is water availability, isn't it? Once the water is gone then so goes Phoenix.
aug 25, 2025, 7:59 pm • 0 0 • view
Yup. It’s a policy choice for AZ to grant water rights to grow crops in the desert that require enormous amounts of water rather than reassigning those rights to residential uses.
aug 25, 2025, 8:04 pm • 0 0 • view