{"id":409,"date":"2019-07-09T13:51:24","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T13:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/?p=409"},"modified":"2019-07-09T15:58:04","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T15:58:04","slug":"progressive-boomers-are-making-it-impossible-for-cities-to-fix-the-housing-crisis-huffpost-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/409\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive Boomers Are Making It Impossible For Cities To Fix The Housing Crisis | HuffPost"},"content":{"rendered":"

m.huffpost.com\/us\/entry\/us_5d1bcf0ee4b07f6ca58598a9?utm_source=main_fb&utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&utm_medium=facebook<\/a>
\nProgressive Boomers Are Making It Impossible For Cities To Fix The Housing Crisis Residents of wealthy neighborhoods are taking extreme measures to block much-needed housing and transportation projects.
\nMichael Hobbes
\nIllustration: HuffPost; Photos: Getty SEATTLE \u2014 In May 2018, a public meeting in a wealthy enclave of one of America\u2019s most progressive cities devolved into a two-hour temper tantrum as longtime residents incensed about a proposed tax to fund homeless services shouted down its proponents.
\n\u201cLies!\u201d the crowd bellowed as an attendee explained that the tax would be levied on corporations, not citizens. \u201cShill!\u201d \u201cPlant!\u201d \u201cPhony!\u201d they shouted as another supporter spoke. \u201cCoward!\u201d a man yelled at a homeless woman as she took the microphone.
\nKirsten Harris-Talley, the co-chair of Seattle\u2019s Homelessness Task Force, had to pause to ask the increasingly unruly crowd to calm down: \u201cCan I finish what I\u2019m saying?\u201d
\n\u201cNo!\u201d the audience chanted back.
\nSeattle is not the only city where locals are losing their minds over issues related to housing, zoning and transportation. Ugly public meetings are becoming increasingly common in cities across the country as residents frustrated by worsening traffic, dwindling parking and rising homelessness take up fierce opposition.
\nLast September, a community hearing over a proposed homeless shelter in Los Angeles had to be cut short after boos and jeering repeatedly interrupted speakers. Throughout 2018, public meetings in Minneapolis to discuss changing the city\u2019s residential zoning code erupted into shouts and insults from audience members. At a public meeting last August on homelessness in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, audience members chanted, \u201cLock her up!\u201d at a female representative of the mayor\u2019s office.
\nThese scenes are usually sparked by projects or policy changes intended to address America\u2019s worsening housing crisis. More than 200 American cities now have median home values above $1 million. The construction of new dwellings has lagged behind the number of new households eight years in a row. Both congestion and climate change are prompting many cities to explore expanding their public transportation networks.
\n An opponent of a proposed homeless shelter argues with a supporter in Irvine, California. (Jeff Gritchen\/Digital First Media\/Orange County Register\/Getty Images) And yet, despite the urgency of the need and the expert consensus on solutions, individual efforts to increase density, improve transit or alleviate homelessness can spend years bogged down by local opposition. In March, neighborhood activists in Los Angeles threatened to sue the city over the installation of a 0.8-mile bike lane. Residents of Seattle\u2019s wealthiest neighborhood demanded reserved seats on city buses and exemptions from road tolls in exchange for permitting a light-rail station. A crowd of more than 1,000 people booed a homeless man who got up to speak in support of a new shelter in Salt Lake City.
\nRowdy public hearings are nothing new in city politics, of course. But campaigners and elected officials told HuffPost that the nature of local opposition has changed in recent years. Where protest movements and civil disobedience were once primarily the tools of the marginalized, they have now become a weapon of privilege \u2014 a way for older, wealthier, mostly white homeowners to drown out and intimidate anyone who challenges their hegemony.
\n\u201cMost of the abuse I got came from older suburban or retired folks, and always from people who considered themselves progressive,\u201d said Rob Johnson, a Seattle City Council member who retired in April after three years in office. During his tenure, he supported proposals to increase housing density, expand public transit and establish safe use sites for drug addicts.
\nDespite representing a constituency with bright-blue voting records on immigration, reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality, Johnson\u2019s progressive positions on local issues provoked a large and organized backlash. In 2017, after supporting a plan to install bike lanes on a major thoroughfare, Johnson received a death threat on social media. Opponents posted his home address on Nextdoor. Eventually, he stopped visiting local businesses and even skipped events at his children\u2019s school to avoid the increasingly frequent confrontations with other parents.
\n\u201cHousing, homelessness and transit have always been controversial, but the kind of feedback and treatment we get has completely transformed in the last five years,\u201d Johnson said.
\n Despite the city\u2019s worsening homelessness crisis, residents of San Francisco have organized strident opposition to the placement of new shelters. (Eric Risberg\/AP) Increasing Tensions Between Old And Young, Owners And Renters
\nWhile the extent and effect of homeowner advocacy are difficult to measure, tensions over density and growth in urban areas have been rising for years.. Nearly every major city in America has seen skyrocketing housing costs push renters out into the exurbs while enriching longer-term residents who bought real estate before the boom.
\nMeanwhile, job growth in urban centers has worsened traffic, filled up parking spots and launched debates over cycling and scooters. Galloping inequality and a fraying safety net have made homelessness and poverty more visible.
\nAccording to Patrick Devine-Wright, a University of Exeter geographer who researches neighborhood activism, rapid growth can contribute to a sense of instability, a feeling among long-term residents that their cities are changing around them in ways they can\u2019t control.
\n\u201cPeople invest themselves in the homes, communities and landscapes where they live,\u201d Devine-Wright said. \u201cThat investment creates a deep reservoir of emotional attachment that can become anxiety and psychological distress when something rears up and threatens it.\u201d
\nThis same phenomenon \u2014 relatively privileged populations mobilizing against perceived threats \u2014 has appeared in cities throughout American history. In the 1970s, white parents mobilized to prevent racial minorities from attending their children\u2019s schools. In the 1990s, affluent voters organized in favor of tougher policing despite living in the neighborhoods with the lowest crime rates. Most of the existing density restrictions contributing to the housing crisis in cities were in fact put in place as a result of lobbying efforts by homeowners seeking to preserve their home values.
\nAnd just as previous generations of anti-change activists used procedural arguments (\u201cstates\u2019 rights,\u201d \u201clocal control\u201d) to oppose progressive policies, today\u2019s anti-growth advocates employ similar arguments about community participation and government processes.
\n\u201cThis isn\u2019t about a bus lane, this is about how much say communities have in government planning,\u201d said Arthur Schwartz, an attorney and a district leader for the Manhattan Democratic Party. For nearly two years now, Schwartz and his neighbors in Greenwich Village have been fighting against a proposed bus lane on 14th Street in Manhattan. Giving priority to buses on the crowded thoroughfare, they say, will push cars and trucks onto residential roads nearby, worsening pollution and increasing ground vibrations, which could harm the neighborhood\u2019s century-old buildings.
\nThe people with the most privilege pack the meetings, shout over everybody else and get their way. Schwartz has filed three lawsuits against the plan, each time demanding that the city carry out an assessment of its environmental impacts. Though he refuses to be labeled a \u201cnot in my backyard\u201d activist (\u201cI\u2019m a Bernie Sanders lawyer and a Cynthia Nixon lawyer and a union lawyer and I\u2019m also a NIMBY lawyer? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d), the neighborhood advocacy group he represents has also demanded that the city cancel a pedestrian expansion and remove bike lanes that have already been built. Shortly after the cycling facilities were installed, someone spray-painted \u201cBring back our parking!\u201d on one of them.
\nThe neighborhood\u2019s median income is $148,000, and black and Latino residents make up just 2% and 6% of the population, respectively. But Schwartz said he isn\u2019t working on behalf of its wealthy residents but rather the low-income tenants living in rent-controlled units nearby who may be affected by the increased car traffic.
\n\u201cThis isn\u2019t about a bunch of rich people concerned about their idyllic community,\u201d Schwartz said.
\nHe also insisted that he wasn\u2019t opposed to bus lanes in principle but suggested that they should be built on either 34th or 42nd street, neither of which have crosstown trains running underneath them. (Part of 42nd street does in fact have a subway line, the S, running underneath it.)
\n\u201cWhen I need to get somewhere quickly, I walk or I take the subway,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t take the bus.\u201d
\n In 2016, residents of Orange County, California, organized in opposition to the placement of a sober living facility. (Leonard Ortiz\/Digital First Media\/Orange County Register\/Getty Images) Schwartz\u2019s arguments and tactics are familiar to advocates on the other side of the housing crisis. Alex Baca, a housing program organizer for the pro-density nonprofit Greater Greater Washington, said neighborhood opposition groups nearly always claim to support public transit and affordable housing in general but use technical arguments and procedural roadblocks to make sure such projects aren\u2019t built in their neighborhoods.
\nExamples of this can be found in nearly every city experiencing job and population growth. In San Francisco, residents of a wealthy neighborhood opposed the construction of low-income senior housing, citing concerns that it was seismically unstable. Seattle homeowners sued a homeless housing project over a technicality related to its permitting. In Boise, by some measures the fastest-growing city in the country, one of the arguments employed by residents fighting the construction of new townhomes is that they will reduce pedestrian safety.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s like playing Whac-a-Mole,\u201d Baca said. \u201cNo matter what you propose, they\u2019ll tell you that if it was just a little bit different, they could support it. But then you come back with the changes they asked for and they find a new reason to fight it.\u201d
\nBaca sees the increasing ugliness of public forums as a manifestation of the widening generation gap among progressives.
\n\u201cThe boomer generation came of age at a time when neighborhoods were fighting back against highway expansions and power plants,\u201d Baca said. \u201cTo them, preserving their neighborhood is progressive.\u201d
\nAnd it\u2019s not just ideology fueling the baby boomer backlash; it\u2019s also technology. Facebook groups and the hyper-local app Nextdoor have made it easier to get signatures on petitions and pack public meetings. GoFundMe allows neighborhood groups to raise six-figure trust funds for legal challenges. Video sharing encourages campaigners to turn public meeting testimony into deceptively edited viral clips.
\nAll of this takes place against the backdrop of an increasingly tense political climate. Michelle Wu, a member of the Boston City Council since 2014, noticed a tone shift after the 2016 election. Issues like housing and parking had always been emotional, but her feedback on social media and in her inbox suddenly took on a more threatening, racist and misogynistic tone.
\n\u201cI started getting anonymous expressions of negativity in a way that didn\u2019t happen before the election,\u201d she said.
\n In Los Angeles, debates over housing, public transportation and homelessness have become more strident in recent years. (Irfan Khan\/Los Angeles Times\/Getty Images) Homeowner Mobilization Will Probably Make Inequality Worse
\nThe unanswered question of the boomer backlash is what it means for the future of cities.
\nIn the short term, anti-growth activism is likely to increase urban inequality. Nearly three-quarters of the jobs created since the Great Recession were added in cities with populations over 1 million. As cities continue to swell with new workers, their inability to build dense housing and high-quality bus and train service will push low-income residents even farther away from jobs and schools.
\n\u201cWe have mountains of data showing that cities need more housing and better transit and shelters for homeless people,\u201d said Matthew Lewis, the director of communications for California YIMBY, a pro-housing nonprofit. And yet cities often give in to neighborhood groups opposing this much-needed infrastructure. The proposed homeless shelter booed by Salt Lake City residents in 2017 was canceled the next day. Schwartz\u2019s lawsuit has succeeded in delaying the bus lane on 14th Street. The tantrum-throwing Seattleites eventually won the repeal of the tax they were shouting about.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cThe people with the most privilege pack the meetings, shout over everybody else and get their way.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s a pretty short leap from \u2018We don\u2019t want homeless people living here\u2019 to \u2018We don\u2019t want refugees\u2019 or \u2019We don\u2019t want immigrants.\u2019 These organized opposition groups could also, in the longer term, form a conservative coalition in cities and pull them to the right. This is already happening in cities with high rates of homelessness, where nominally progressive residents have formed interest groups that echo conservative talking points on personal responsibility and cracking down on drug users.
\n\u201cThis is not an anti-homeless march,\u201d Barry Vince, an attorney, told reporters from the local television station as he participated in an \u201canti-crime march\u201d in Long Beach, California. \u201cWe\u2019re here to march against criminals, and we want the bad guys taken down.\u201d
\nLewis said he\u2019s seen similar rhetoric begin to appear in public hearings over housing and transportation.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty short leap from \u2018We don\u2019t want homeless people living here\u2019 to \u2018We don\u2019t want refugees\u2019 or \u2018We don\u2019t want immigrants,\u2019\u201d Lewis said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen lifelong hippies who drive electric vehicles stand up at these meetings and say, \u2018There\u2019s too many people here already.\u2019 It\u2019s like you\u2019re at a Trump rally.\u201d
\nDevine-Wright said one way for cities to counteract these forces is to get smarter about managing community input. In Britain, cities have begun to swap large town-hall meetings (\u201conce one person starts shouting, so does everyone else\u201d) for all-day, open house-style exhibitions that allow neighbors to interact with politicians one-on-one. The key, Devine-Wright said, is starting consultations early and providing more opportunities for citizen participation.
\nCities can also redesign community outreach to encourage input from groups that have traditionally been excluded. According to a 2017 study, older male homeowners are more likely to participate in town hall meetings and other public participation processes than other demographic groups. Another, published this month, found that becoming a property owner motivated individuals to participate in politics and to express their views on housing, traffic and development to elected leaders more often.
\nWu, the Boston City Council member, said she has started holding public hearings during the evenings and in neighborhoods where residents may have trouble getting to City Hall to testify.
\n\u201cThe traditional model of public hearings is that you sign up, take time off work, come to a building that\u2019s not fully accessible, wait for hours, then get two minutes to speak,\u201d Wu said. \u201cThat leaves a lot of people out.\u201d
\nWhile other cities have made similar updates to their community engagement procedures, it\u2019s not clear if longer or more inclusive citizen engagement will lower the temperature of local debates over density and growth.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve had people participate in years-long consultations and then, when they don\u2019t get exactly their way, they claim they were excluded from the process,\u201d said Robert Getch, a Seattle housing activist. He fears that as rental costs, traffic and homelessness continue to increase in cities, opponents to any action to reduce them may become even more entrenched.
\n\u201cThe only thing that gives me hope is that the most radical voices don\u2019t represent the will of the majority,\u201d Getch said. \u201cMost people want more homes and more transit and have compassion for the homeless. We just need politicians to stop listening to the people who are shouting the loudest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mary Bolton 202-390-1208<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

m.huffpost.com\/us\/entry\/us_5d1bcf0ee4b07f6ca58598a9?utm_source=main_fb&utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&utm_medium=facebook Progressive Boomers Are Making It Impossible For Cities To Fix The Housing Crisis Residents of wealthy neighborhoods are taking extreme measures to block much-needed housing and transportation projects. Michael Hobbes Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Getty SEATTLE \u2014 In May 2018, a public meeting in a wealthy enclave of one of America\u2019s most progressive cities devolved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housingarchive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}