Posted on 11/20/2013 12:03:27 AM PST by WilliamIII
A plan to squeeze most residents of the San Francisco Bay Area into multifamily housing offers a test case of whether land-use bureaucracies nationwide, encouraged by the Obama administration, should be allowed to transform American lifestyles under the pretext of combating climate change.
Currently, 56 percent of households in the nine-county Bay Area live in single-family homes. That number would drop to 48 percent by 2030, under a high-density development blueprint called Plan Bay Area, recently enacted by the Association of Bay Area Governments and the region’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Plan Bay Area has already drawn several legal challenges, and the debate could spread nationwide if, as may happen, it becomes a model for regulators in other parts of the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Right. And where is the empirical evidence that crowded, filthy, vermin-ridden apartments are more environmentally friendly than houses?
Small towns and suburbs are generally not filthy and strewn with trash. Big cities are. Diseases also spread quite easily through big cities. Not to mention that these caged, crowded lifestyles are dehumanizing and cause a great amount of stress.
I have read enough leftists gushing over the wonders of city life to realize that the urge to force everyone to live in cramped apartments does not stem from any misguided concern for the environment. They actually believe that their elusive socialist utopia can be achieved by forcing everyone to live in cities—they imagine that their love of cities is shared by everyone. Or would be shared, if leftists could just force everyone to live that way long enough to realize how much they like it.
Yeah, it will be called Stalag 69.
If you have ever seen a copy of the American Community Survey, a product of the Census Bureau, you know this is the goal.
The questions on the survey involve how far you drive to work, whether or not your carpool, how many people live in your home and the number of bedrooms, even the number of toilets.
These people absolutely want to force everyone into high rise government housing to “save” the environment.
” I wonder if these dirtbags want to exempt themselves from their own BS? “
Several years ago this crusading California rock star was hyping the benefits of everybody driving a Prius. (For the sake of our children, the environment, yadda, yadda.) A reporter asked if this meant he’d be giving up his Mercedes AMG super car for a Prius. An angry...and I do mean ANGRY expression flashed across his face and he said, “I ain’t givin’ up my Mercedes for nobody. I earned it.”
That encapsulated the Left in two sentences. Environmental sacrifice is for everybody BUT them.
The courtyard night light is a nice touch.
Very well said and very true. Sad to say however that, over the long haul, they appear to be succeeding in force-fitting their “subject” class into their Urban dystopias. I’ll point out just one element of the problem: from the article:
“Advocates argue that the demand for single-family homes is about to drop as retiring baby boomers and up-and-coming millennials will prefer to live in mixed-use neighborhoods with high densities and easy pedestrian access to stores and entertainment.
This claim isn’t supported by people’s actual behavior. The vast majority of population growth continues to be in low-density suburbs. Surveys of millennials show that more than three out of four aspire to live in a single-family home with a yard.”
Before we left the “City” this year, I came into daily contact with numerous millennials. They’re nice enough but the big problem is that the media, the social media and the opinion media, (which is 99% of the MSM), daily pump at them the view expressed in the first quoted paragraph.
They are not, for the most part, independent nor critical thinkers so they’ve internalized the message and have come to adopt the view as their own.
In the final analysis, those of us nearing retirement won’t be affected by this movement and those who will be, the so-called millennials and whatever offspring they might manage to produce, simply won’t know anything else.
One of the peculiar aspects of this movement is that rural America will literally be an empty quarter with near zero population and with the government or the UN in control of most all of the rural areas. Farmland operations will be owned by big Agribusiness. That trend has already started.
Here in NJ single-family homes are sitting on the market because of the drop in birthrate; unless a homeowner can convert it to a 2-family there is too much space for a couple with either a child or a pet (and the taxes are prohibitive). Many towns turn a blind eye to such modifications, and when they are alerted they tend to allow the 2 family to remain (with increased taxes, of course).
While I see the trend against single family homes continuing, I see demographics rather than (though maybe due to) government policy driving it.
Reminds one of the NKVD searching uncle’s house in Doctor Zhivago to be sure it shelters the correct number of proles.
Funny that the same thing is coming to the U.S.
Eliminating the mortgage tax deduction would do a lot to move this cause forward.
PLUS, it would have the support of a bunch of Freepers.
“Shoot. Shovel. Shut up.”
——A plan to squeeze most residents of the San Francisco Bay Area into multifamily housing offers a test case of whether land-use bureaucracies nationwide-——
Nationwide...?....I highly doubt that....
The vast majority of the country land use are elected county officals....
If they like their cushy jobs....the 10 foot pole rule goes into effect..
The insanity from the left keeps on coming without end. glad I am getting old.
There are too many people in this country that won’t be satisfied until we’re all living in Soviet squalor.
They are not, for the most part, independent nor critical thinkers so they’ve internalized the message and have come to adopt the view as their own.
I'm not sure your pessimism is entirely warranted. While this view of humans as being just one insignificant element of a herd is shoved at us through the media (leftist teachers, etc.), the reality is that the propaganda comes right up against our instinct. Humans are not instinctively herd creatures. We are born to want the open spaces--to want social structure, but in a limited fashion. No matter what dystopian schemes the left envisions, they cannot change our inborn human nature.
Communism. Re-ordering the middle class to the political bodies’ general liking. For their “good” of course.
Well, if the people of the Bay Area are fine with being herded like cattle in exchange for being able to gay it up as much as they like, then I guess they deserve it.
They obviously have a record for exempting themselves.....O care a great example of this bs.
Population Control
Eugenics
Communist, Totalitarian control.
Destroy America, Free Markets, Industrialization, etc.
They would actually prefer we all died - but cramming us into cellblocks is the next best option.
No, their “trial” was when they spoke.
They are advocating enslavement and population control (genocide).
That’s enough.
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