Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/12/20/public-banks.html
…
3 Likes
She sounds like a pretty solid candidate, i really hope she wins 
12 Likes
Pro-gentrification policies? All Wiener did was advance a bill requiring neighborhoods near transit hubs to zone for denser housing. This seems like a perfectly rational solution to 1) rising housing costs 2) global warming (denser locations produce less greenhouse gasses). Hundreds of thousands of people have moved to the bay area over the past decade. How else are we going to bring housing costs down?
Right wing shills like Elizabeth Warren and Matthew Iglesias see this quite clearly and are in favor of upzoning. And yet somehow progressives are virulently against it, thus lining the pockets of landowners and landlords. The progressive aversion to new buildings is the climate denialism of the left. A near spiritual belief about the evil of a thing despite all scientific evidence to the contrary.
2 Likes
I would really like to see a better bio on her. What I do see, “looks” like someone raised in Southern California looking to “represent” a Northern California region using every hot button she can lay her hands on to get the seat.
1 Like
This Gal has it, I’d vote for her, for sure.
3 Likes
Welcome to our community! Citing sources to support your sweeping generalizations is also welcome.
12 Likes
I’m really liking the idea of public banks, though I’m still a huge fan of the mild mannered credit union. I can also get on board with the idea of divesting.
Though I’m not in California’s District 11, this is in my backyard. Thanks for making me aware of this, @doctorow. I donated and I’ll be watching because we need more of her demographic representing, well, her demographic.
8 Likes
I don’t know about the Warren and Iglesias references, but from where I sit (a renter and techie in the SF Bay Area), fufu has a point: in our current sociopolitical framework, there appear to be two “solutions”/sides to the housing crisis:
Build more buildings faster, which funnels money to developers and evicts a lot of people during gentrification.
Slow development and increase things like rent control, which funnels money to landlords via the unregulated housing stock becoming more expensive and forcing out anyone who isn’t wealthy or lucky enough to have a controlled unit (and there are a bunch of perverse incentives to make sure there is turn over on rent controlled units).
We’re currently doing option 2, and it sucks. I rtfaed and looked at her website, and I couldn’t find any proposals for the housing crisis. I hope it isn’t more if the same, but harder. (I think there are solutions to the housing crisis, they just don’t fit in the current overton window)
I do like her core issue: divestment and public banks sound like good ideas. And voting for her might start to shift the overton window in a direction where something effective could be done. (I hate the housing politics here. There isn’t a clear side to support)
3 Likes
Whynotboth.gif
The problem with “faster development” is that it generally means a green light for condensed high end of the market construction, since that’s where the absurd profits are to be had.
Accelerated development of affordable housing, subsidized by state grants and tax breaks, appears to be the sweet spot and is gaining some traction in Oregon and Washington. But the programs still have a lot of room for growth.
Presenting the false dichotomy of development OR regulation is what got us into this messy imbalance of luxury and affordable housing in the first place. Let’s be reasonable and find solutions that work for states, developers and owners/renters.
8 Likes
My home town is pretty well known for its Winchester House style constant round of redevelopment; there is always something being torn down, put up, gutted or gentrified. Back around the turn of the Century it was all about turning any available building in to “exclusive office space”. Now every project is branded as “luxury apartments*”.
*Even my spelling and grammar checker knows that should be “flats” over here in the UK 
4 Likes
regulatation, stricter rent control, … as much as possible to stack the deck in favor of people living and working. Property owners are free to divest themselves of thier investment if it is no longer profitable to the desired degree. Someone else will pick it up and accept a lower rate of return. That’s just basic human nature in a market.
This idea needs to stop that we need to protect land holders that have made record returns in the last two decades. They aren’t some fragile industry that is “too big to fail”. It’s a dynamic industry with a large number of investorers of all different shapes and sizes. And an industry that has weathered both rent control and economic downturn before.
- rent control on structures more than 10 years old. Easy and not all that controvertial.
- rent schedules for new structures. city planners get to determine the schedules every year based on zone planning. and owners get to either follow the schedule or pay a stiffer property tax rate.
- don’t like the deal? sell your investment and take your business elsewhere.
2 Likes
By requiring developers to build housing other than “luxury” condominium and rental buildings. Zoning for denser housing is a start, as is pushing back against the NIMBYs. But if that high-density housing is unaffordable to working-class people (as justified by The Market, praise Its name and Its apostle Ayn Rand) then you’re going to get gentrification and young people like Fielder living out of their cars (or in the favela/Hooverville outside Oakland).
4 Likes
nuclear being a close second. i left my college’s enviornmental group because they were obsessed beyond reason with nuclear power being unacceptable, even as a stop gap until solar becomes more efficent / cost effective and battery tech can advance to deal w the storage / transmission issues.
1 Like
Calling her “homeless” is… a massive stretch. She suffers from none of the problems and barriers to life that we associate with real homeless people: drug addictions, mental health problems, criminal records, lack of education, lack of opportunities. She has a graduate degree from Stanford, a top university. She can get jobs and make income. Especially if she is an enrolled tribal member, she will get significant hiring preferences in any place that’s hiring sociologists. (And if she’s not an enrolled member, her claims to be native American and connected to a list of tribes should be treated with some skepticism.) She can probably get a six figure income quite easily in a lot of places if she chooses to.
I wish her electoral success but the headline is a stretch to say the least…
Ah yes the privlidged homeless how dare she 
Didn’t realize the homeless community also does gatekeeping
She’s using her (modest) privilege to help
5 Likes
As if there isn’t highly educated minorities among the homeless. Also we don’t know the circumstances that got her to become homeless and what she overcame, perhaps she had it easy in some respects but i don’t know so i don’t see the point in speculating. Especially if she’s a candidate that’s actively trying to make things better for the homeless and low-income folks then why shit on her lived experiences? Perhaps if she was campaigning while living under an overpass huffing paint she might be homeless enough for you.
7 Likes
Right? “Homeless” and “purity test” don’t really go together well.
6 Likes
See Kiwibank, New Zealand’s state-owned bank which was started in response to the four major banks in NZ were Australian owned.
I came here to basically say this.
To our fellow progressives who sincerely think it’s a supply and demand problem: The only housing that ever gets built in gentrifying cities like San Francisco is luxury housing. THE ONLY HOUSING THAT GETS BUILT. It’s not progressive, it’s “build baby build,” supply-side economics. The housing is not trickling down my friend.
It amounts to one side that helps the developers (Scott Weiner, London Breed), and another that protects tenants and low income folks from homelessness. There are 5 vacant units of (luxury) housing for every 1 homeless person in San Franciscio. LA has similar statistics.
There ought to be a moratorium on market rate housing. Public/Affordable housing, or nothing.
There’s also folks going round’ calling themselves PHIMBY, for “public housing in my back yard.” I really feel there’s no other solution to skyrocketing homelessness than massive investment in public housing. The market will NEVER solve this problem.
3 Likes
It’s the same here in Austin, pretty much 90% or more of the new multifamily development i’ve been seeing has been luxury apts. I have a decent job and i can’t afford the rent in most of those apartments, and i make too much to really qualify for low-income housing.
1 Like
