Random

[magid]

MA-folks: I was looking over the ballot questions that will be voted on November 2, and realized I don't really understand Question 2, about low-income housing variances. I think it has to do with minimizing paperwork to allow variances that would result in more low-income housing, but I suspect I'm missing something. Anyone understand this one enough to tell me more?

Best typo recently: yard sail. Not sure whether that's a physical sail (thereby allowing more vertical yard, useful in urban situations! :-), or the act of going for a sail using one's yard. If so, I suspect those people out in the suburbs would have to get large-yard sailing permits.

I saw a bus with two people in it, the sign on front reading "Instruction." First time I've seen that. I'd never thought about how bus drivers learn their routes; I guess I assumed that there'd be a mentor on the ride, but otherwise, it would be a regular bus in service. It seems a bit wasteful otherwise.

Annoying: a sore throat. Soothing: hot tea with local honey, and mushroom-barley soup enhanced with wheat-barley bread crumbs (too much barley flour: it's tending towards crumbling anyway) and thin slices of Brie. Unfortunately, it's not possible to be constantly sucking down liquids... But happily, it passed after a couple of days.

Pepper play: pickled hot peppers, marinated red peppers, and stuffed poblano peppers (with brown rice, raisins, sunflower seeds, roasted tomatoes, pecorino-romano, and topped with herbed mozzarella). I still have some mini bell peppers left....

Link sausage:

• Blog post: the disease of perfection, which I very much can relate to.
  
• Pictures: photos of Russia from a century ago... in color! (I'm fond of #16, for obvious reasons. And I find the clothing fascinating.)
  
• Video: Why Homosexuality Should Be Banned (watch before bashing based on title, please!)
  
• Music video: Janelle Monáe's Tightrope
  
• MP3: (aka most recent music obsession) Mount Kimbie's Before I Move Off (though I find that his music seems to stop, rather than end*.)
  * Which of course makes me think of Lipman's The Chatterlings.
  
• ETA 1520: Some amazing maps of Europe from a variety of social/nationalistic perspectives; incredibly funny.

Comments

[sethg]

Absent 40B, what incentive does any developer have to build affordable housing? It seems to me that on one side of this issue, there are rapacious developers who will throw crumbs to the poor in exchange for an end-run around zoning laws; on the other side, there are rapacious suburban homeowners who will accept affordable housing in their towns as long as they’re affordable single-family houses on five-acre lots. Given that choice, I’ll side with the developers.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Let us, for a moment, ignore the details of Question 2, and 40B.

What would we want from a program which promoted affordable housing?

We'd want it to produce affordable housing, with few adverse side effects on existing towns. Isn't that about right? If we establish that - and if we can get honest agreement on that, we can analyze what we've got.

40B has had a long run: it has not changed the amount of affordable housing in any appreciable way. As an affordable housing program, it has failed to produce reasonable change in affordable housing.

What it has done, is allow all sorts of housing to be built that violates local zoning - even if that housing creates high burdens on town infrastructure which the construction and taxes would not cover. And there is ample evidence that developers have conducted wholesale waste and fraud under 40B.

If one hates affordable housing: 40B is a problem. If one loves affordable housing: 40B is still no solution to affordable housing. If one looks closely, even the "affordable" housing that is produced by 40B is not all that affordable. Nor does it necessarily benefit the community it is in: for example, friends of mine entered a lottery for 40B housing in a town they didn't live in: which they won. So, existing residents in that town didn't gain anything at all.

It is true: most homeowners don't want affordable housing, and neither do most towns. The people who want it and need it, are generally the most vulnerable and most under-represented. But, they are not served by the current situation. And, frankly, as long as large development dollars hold sway in the legislature, I expect the stalemate to continue.

You have proffered an artificial choice: because in the end we currently have no real progress on affordable housing, no legislative incentive to improve the situation, and towns being harmed by developers. We don't have to choose between little-at-great-price or none.

But the first step is to remove 40B by ballot question. It doesn't do real good, it only does harm. Going back to basics: if it only consists of side effects, and does no real good, it's a failure.

[sethg]

In the American political system, the only way to set up an enduring program that benefits poor people is to simultaneously benefit some interest group with actual clout. Food stamps are a sop to agribusiness; student loans gave free money to banks for decades; Social Security beneficiaries include people who could easily live off their pensions; etc. I don’t like it, but until the US has something resembling an actual labor party, I’ll live with it.

So any plan to increase the stock of affordable housing has to grease the developers, or grease some other powerful interest group (e.g., rent-control laws benefited middle-class people who wanted to stay in the town they grew up in), or it will be the first item on the chopping block whenever the budget gets tight.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I despise your cynicism, largely for its accuracy. :-) :-) Much of which cynicism I share.

I'm OK with someone getting greased, I guess.

But what we have now is someone making out like a bandit and NO REAL IMPROVEMENT in affordable housing.

Is that a program worthy of your support?

John Belskis is the guy behind this repeal: he is subscribed to a town mailing list that I'm on as well. I've been reading his words for YEARS. He's a passionate defender of progressive rights and affordable housing, and he's serious about them. But he's been very convincing to me that what we've got has failed all of us, while enriching developers.

If we can't convince the sort of folks that regret the lack of a labor party, we're kinda stuck with this mess. :-)