Conversation

“Palo Alto — and you can find this data in the census — is increasingly an aging, silver retirement community. It's either — you bought in the seventies, eighties or nineties, or you struck it rich on the startup lottery. I know our town can be a hell of a lot more than that.”

Quote Tweet

Palo Alto Weekly

@paloaltoweekly

· Nov 28, 2020

As he enters his final weeks in office, #PaloAlto Mayor Adrian Fine discusses his frustrations with local leadership, hobbled quests to build more housing and hopes for future council members to move the city forward. paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/11/2

274

Jesse Powell

@jespow

Dec 1, 2020

What’s wrong with it being just what it is? Presumably, it is acceptable for some place to be an aging, silver retirement community. Why not Palo Alto? Being “more” would be something different, which sounds like it’s at odds with the retirement community vibe residents enjoy.

Kim-Mai Cutler

@kimmaicutler

Dec 2, 2020

there are costs to everyone else:

techcrunch.com

East Of Palo Alto’s Eden: Race And The Formation Of Silicon Valley

What if Silicon Valley had emerged from a racially integrated community? Would the technology industry be different? Would we? And what can the technology industry do now to avoid repeating the...

Kim-Mai Cutler

@kimmaicutler

Dec 2, 2020

there are costs to the entire economy, on the order of trillions of dollars a year

bloomberg.com

The Urban Housing Crunch Costs the U.S. Economy About $1.6 Trillion a Year

For the first time, economists have put a price tag on restrictive urban land use policies.

Kim-Mai Cutler

@kimmaicutler

Dec 2, 2020

it also reduces economic dynamism and socioeconomic mobility for the entire labor force. it means the meritocracy doesn't exist at all; in fact, the inverse. a heritocracy.

opportunityinsights.org

Income Segregation and Intergenerational Mobility Across Colleges in the United States | Opportun...

Jesse Powell

@jespow

Dec 2, 2020

Maybe but it could be that those things aren't desirable in PA. Improving scores in those areas might reduce the cost of labor but it might also be worth it to them to just pay the higher cost to maintain low scores there. Can't blame them for trading in their own interest.

Zach Lipton

@zachlipton

Dec 3, 2020

I don’t blame them for acting in their interest, but shouldn’t a functioning democracy stop those acting in their own interest while hurting others? If it suits PA’s interests to tell property owners they can’t build apartments doesn’t it suit the state’s interests to say no?

Replying to

and

I think the bar for "hurting" in this thread is pretty low. We're talking about voluntary transactions. The state should be careful to avoid the pitfalls of populism and socialism. The state should be concerned about driving out its wealthy employers.

12:58 AM · Dec 3, 2020Twitter Web App

Replying to

and

Uh, 1) American homeownership is arguably socialized in many respects. The 30 year fixed rate mortgage is an instrument that is enabled by the GSEs and exists nowhere else in the world aside from Denmark. 2) it is driving its wealthy employers out. See the last few months.

Replying to

and

Scroll up a couple of tweets where it says "there are costs to the entire economy, on the order of trillions of dollars a year” and perform a bit of arithmetic. “Living like this costs every person in the country on the order of $5K/year” is “hurting,” yes.

Jesse Powell

@jespow

Dec 3, 2020

Unless you tell me that Palo Alto is poisoning the oceans, I'm going to have a hard time believing "trillions of dollars a year". Can someone break out that figure in a Google Sheet? Reading it on Twitter doesn't make it true. The value of PA hosting the wealthy is worth 100 tril

Show replies

Replying to

and

If you find it odd to characterize "voluntary transactions" to be characterized as harmful, I have some bad news for you about the exclusionary zoning today/tomorrow/forever movement in PA and the like.

David Watkins

@djw172

Dec 3, 2020

*I* don't think my neighbor voluntarily transacting his house to a developer who builds a 6-plex "harms" me in any public-policy relevant sense, but for some reason Palo Alto residents see things differently.