Hong Hate Horoscope: Week of April 26, 2021
Lotta sports articles this week!
Good journalism/Cool shit
South Korea’s Covid-19 success story started with failure
Cool series on what countries did differently and what went right and wrong. [Vox]
Housing For All: The Case for Progressive YIMBYism
A primer on building more housing. Selected quotes below:
While YIMBY policies are anti-racist and pro-climate, a common refrain against YIMBYs is that we’re “developer shills”. However, the reality is that many of the most vocal NIMBYs are, quite literally homeowners and landlords. And the people getting rich off our housing crisis aren’t usually developers — it’s those same homeowners and landlords reaping the windfalls of speculation (note: while there are some vertically integrated developers that also rent out units as landlords, this is a very small percentage of the overall market). The above chart from the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis is stunning in contrast — property owners are making orders of magnitude more money than developers in a state with a housing shortage.
On gentrification and rental prices:
When looking at the actual impact of building more homes, a recent paper from UC Berkeley found that building more homes is one of the top strategies to prevent displacement. Furthermore, almost all research finds that new market-rate housing does not increase rents — in fact, it lowers them. (note: there is some nuance about this fact: while there is broad academic consensus that building more homes does lower housing prices at the regional level, there has been much debate over local submarkets — i.e., if a new apartment building will raise rents for lower-rent buildings nearby. Thankfully, there have been six studies on this issue over the past couple years, and five find that market-rate housing makes nearby housing more affordable, and one finds mixed results).
Against Prop 13 (maybe the worst law of all time):
In addition to federal laws like the regressive mortgage interest tax deduction, this is especially bad in California where we have something called Prop 13 that passed in the 1970’s when we had the infamous “tax revolt” (not coincidentally, Ronald Reagan was our Governor for half of the decade). Prop 13 locks property owners’ taxes into the initial property value when bought, and limits any property tax increase to 2% per year. As a result, you end up with situations where a $9M mansion in ritzy Presidio Heights pays the same tax as a $300K starter home in Richmond.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens even went as far as to compare property owners in California to feudal lords in a dissent:
“Those who invested in California real estate in the 1970s are among the most fortunate capitalists in the world. Proposition 13 has provided these successful investors with a tremendous windfall and, in doing so, has created severe inequities in California’s property tax scheme. These property owners (hereinafter “the Squires”) are guaranteed that, so long as they retain their property and do not improve it, their taxes will not increase more than 2% in any given year. As a direct result of this windfall for the Squires, later purchasers must pay far more than their fair share of property taxes.” — Justice Stevens
Who is the racial justice case for zoning reform for?
Going housing heavy again this week. On the framing of the issue:
I care a lot about zoning — so much so that I wrote a whole book about it — so I 100% agree that any conversation about racial equity in the United States ought to center land use policy as a critical lever. But on another level, this is a broader example of what our own Marc Novicoff wrote about in “Stop Marketing Race-Blind Policies as Racial Equity Initiatives.” His focus was on the welfare state and redistributive issues, but the same thing happens in other areas, too. It’s become common to make the case for marijuana reform in racial justice terms, for example.
What’s interesting about the housing case is that we just recently had a really good collaboration between Vox and Data for Progress(written up by Jerusalem Demsas) on the question of whether a race-forward framing of the housing issue is a good idea. The answer was: No, land use reform is more popular if you describe it as an economic growth initiative than as a racial justice initiative.
Generally why NIMBYism exists:
What we have is a situation where even though almost everyone would be better off with a lot more new housebuilding, perverse institutional design ensures that we don’t get it. New housebuilding creates important citywide (stronger tax base) and metro-wide (housing affordability) benefits, but it also creates local burdens in terms of traffic and parking. So everyone’s views will be pretty literally NIMBY — build more housing but build it somewhere else.
And a lot more about the framing of issues, progressiveism, and how to sell the proposals. [Slow Boring]
American Police Are Inadequately Trained
Ok, I (rightly) dunked on Olga last week for her absolute insane “actually Zoom interactions are better than in person interactions” take, but this was good from her:
Police in the United States receive less initial training than their counterparts in other rich countries—about five months in a classroom and another three or so months in the field, on average. Many European nations, meanwhile, have something more akin to police universities, which can take three or four years to complete. European countries also have national standards for various elements of a police officer’s job—such as how to search a car and when to use a baton. The U.S. does not.
The 18,000 police departments in the U.S. each have their own rules and requirements. But although police reform is a contentious subject, the inadequacy of the current training provides a rare point of relative consensus: “Police officers, police chiefs, and everyone agree that we do not get enough training in a myriad of fields,” Dennis Slocumb, the legislative director of the International Union of Police Associations, told me. [The Atlantic]
Sports hot takes
The European Super League Pyramid Scheme
So it looks like the Super League is dead (a wild 48 hours for those of us who paid attention), but I think Phillips hit it on the head:
On the other hand, I’m an American soccer fan who pays money to watch European club football on television. I am way more excited to watch games when the world’s best players are involved, which typically means when the big clubs play each other. Complaining about the Super League makes me feel a little like the guy who’s upset about the demise of independent bookstores even though he orders from Amazon 90 percent of the time, or the guy who’s sad about the struggles of indie bands even though he’s spent 15 years streaming nothing but Drake albums.
Article also includes lots of unnecessary jabs at Tottenham, while of course, me being masochistic, I appreciated and laughed at. [The Ringer]
The Oral History of the Best Game Mike D’Antoni Ever Saw
Cool story about a random regular season NBA game that I definitely don’t remember. (Also I saw oral history so you knew I was in.) [The Ringer]
There’s Nothing Quite Like the Magic of Steph Curry
Steph is can’t miss TV and a joy to watch. Plus now that the Dubs are kinda trash, they’re fun to root for again.
Klay Thompson has five career games of 10 or more 3-point makes, which is good for second on the all-time list; Steph has splashed at least 10 triples six times this season, including in four of his past five games, raising his career total to 21. [The Ringer]
‘He sucked the culture out of the club’ – the inside story of Jose Mourinho’s downfall at Tottenham
While this wasn’t the biggest news in soccer this week (somehow), this was a great story. There’s a lot of blame to go around, from Jose to the players. Honestly have to feel a bit bad for Jose. [The Athletic]
Mac Jones Is the Draft’s Biggest Question Mark. He’s Also a Case Study in NFL Quarterback Logic.
Rodger is a joy to read. [The Ringer]
Et cetera
Let’s Hope the New ‘Mortal Kombat’ Is Half As Good-Bad As the Old ‘Mortal Kombat’
File under: so bad it’s good? (The original is a classic though, for all the wrong reasons.) [The Ringer]
The very cute, totally disturbing tale of the American “it” dog
Ok so this is just me being a hater, but these dogs are SO UGLY and not cute at all and just seem all around terrible. Why would you want one? At least if you want a designer dog, get one that doesn’t suck.
On Instagram, the most popular dog breeds currently are Frenchies, pugs, and bulldogs, which, in turn, only make them more popular. Their flat faces scream cute while the high prices for a puppy make them as aspirational as multi-step skin care routines, Le Creuset kitchenware, and living in a remodeled van.
Americans have terrible taste. (Yes, I understand that this is not the point of this article, but it’s my takeaway.) [Vox]
Recipe of the Week
So I’ve sent out a cinnamon roll recipe before, but this is a new one and extremely good. Super fluffy, rises extremely well (even in my cold apartment), and the icing is delicious. Not a ton of effort either (as far as cinnamon rolls go)!