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FlamingLiberal posted:This is unfortunately very true I think part of it is that quite a bit of local governance is way outside of common knowledge. It's one thing to want fully automated gay space communism, it's quite another to know if candidate X's stance on zoning disputes is going to impact your future.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:08
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KillHour posted:People show up to national elections because the media makes a big deal about it to drive turnout. This is specifically because there are contested interests. Nobody knows squat about local politics because only one side generally has the money and influence to get the media to talk about it and that side is already in power and doesn't want anyone to pay attention. Yeah, its this really. Without media/journalists doing deep dives, you're not getting anything out of the local political scene beyond what the candidate puts out about themself or the local water cooler talk. It's very hard for voters to care or make informed decisions in that kind of environment.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:15
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DarkCrawler posted:This dichotomy has always been super-weird to me, because that is basically how you can affect your actual surroundings the fastest. Yet the more local the election, the less there is interest, except with EU elections bucking the trend at least here with the biggest remit but least interest. Finding meaningful, accurate information about local elections is extremely difficult for the average person. National elections get platforms and interviews and people digging into backgrounds and different points being raised by different people, so people can at least feel informed even if they are extremely ignorant of what's actually going on. I do my best to try to be active in local politics and its just like, loving Jesus, the only reason I was able to realize one of the candidates running for schoolboard was a Moms4Liberty plant was because the local kung fu teacher managed to dig it up and ran around shouting to everyone he knew... and I think she lost, but only because people re-elected literally everyone, not because your average voter had the slightest idea. How would they?
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Mar 25, 2023 19:15
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Star Man posted:All that ever seems to happen when a bunch of monied tech workers from California colonize a Z-list town in a red state is landlords and realtors jack up the cost of housing. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but a crap ton of Californians moved to Arizona in the last few decades and the state has gone from being one of the reddest in the country to pretty solidly purple. Biden won the state in 2020 and we had 2 Dem senators for like 5 minutes until Sinema started showing her true colors then left to be independent. So yeah the housing prices shot through the roof but also it most likely turned the state into a somewhat more liberal place.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:15
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Charliegrs posted:I don't have any numbers to back this up, but a crap ton of Californians moved to Arizona in the last few decades and the state has gone from being one of the reddest in the country to pretty solidly purple. Biden won the state in 2020 and we had 2 Dem senators for like 5 minutes until Sinema started showing her true colors then left to be independent. So yeah the housing prices shot through the roof but also it most likely turned the state into a somewhat more liberal place. Unless we get more wet seasons like this past winter/spring for the Colorado River, Arizona could become quite literally a ghost town on that 10-20 year timeline being discussed by now.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:19
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GlyphGryph posted:Finding meaningful, accurate information about local elections is extremely difficult for the average person. National elections get platforms and interviews and people digging into backgrounds and different points being raised by different people, so people can at least feel informed even if they are extremely ignorant of what's actually going on. This sounds exactly right, I wonder if there are any studies done on this. Your local HOA makes more of an impact to your everyday life and most people probably don't bother to find out anything about those guys unless they do something that directly impacts them.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:26
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GlyphGryph posted:Finding meaningful, accurate information about local elections is extremely difficult for the average person. National elections get platforms and interviews and people digging into backgrounds and different points being raised by different people, so people can at least feel informed even if they are extremely ignorant of what's actually going on. In Los Angeles there were about 15 judicial positions to vote on in addition to all the other random positions like comptroller and superintendent. No way anyone but the most terminally online political nerd is going to do research on all of those positions. Heck, I bet the majority barely even do research on the big statewide races like Governor or Senator.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:36
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Staying meaningfully informed about local elections was probably easier before print journalism got apocalypsed by what the internet gradually did to people's information intake. There's not a lot of local journalism of any kind anymore which is genuinely financeable.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:43
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Lately I've definitely spent a lot of time thinking about selling my house in SC and moving to a place where there are things to do and I'm unlikely to be made illegal in the moderate-term future, but: 1) I have no particular reason to choose any given blue state or city over any other and thus am beset by total choice paralysis. 2) It seems like cities are becoming increasingly expensive and if I lost my current well-paid remote job I would probably no longer be able to afford it, on top of being out of my support system.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:44
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Seph posted:No way anyone but the most terminally online political nerd is going to do research on all of those positions. So here in Washington they mail us all a packet where the candidates get to tell us who they are or groups make arguments for or against the things we are going to vote on. So it’s a problem with a already existing solution.
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Mar 25, 2023 19:49
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Seph posted:In Los Angeles there were about 15 judicial positions to vote on in addition to all the other random positions like comptroller and superintendent. No way anyone but the most terminally online political nerd is going to do research on all of those positions. Heck, I bet the majority barely even do research on the big statewide races like Governor or Senator. It still irritates me how well Caruso did in his mayoral run, even if he ultimately lost.
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Mar 25, 2023 20:00
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Bar Ran Dun posted:So here in Washington they mail us all a packet where the candidates get to tell us who they are or groups make arguments for or against the things we are going to vote on. California has a similar thing. But I’d argue you’re in the top 10% of voters if you even open the packet, let alone read it for every minor election.
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Mar 25, 2023 20:00
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Another thing WA does that makes voting in local elections easier is mailing everyone a ballot for every election. Don't need to keep track of when elections are, you'll notice the ballot and voters guide in your mailbox.
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Mar 25, 2023 20:00
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Seph posted:In Los Angeles there were about 15 judicial positions to vote on in addition to all the other random positions like comptroller and superintendent. No way anyone but the most terminally online political nerd is going to do research on all of those positions. Heck, I bet the majority barely even do research on the big statewide races like Governor or Senator. Harris County (Houston) routinely has the longest local ballot in the country. The last election here had between 90 and 103 elections to vote on, depending on your specific zip code.
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Mar 25, 2023 20:18
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Fister Roboto posted:You need rent and price controls in conjunction with UBI, otherwise you might as well just be giving landlords more money. I'm in favor of both, of course. The fact that nobody talks about rent or price control in some of the most forward-thinking cities in the country is very telling to me about the state of local government. In Seattle rent control and price control are basically going to be required in a few years if things continue, but everybody just shrugs and points to our somewhat-reasonable minimum wage (it's still too low). And of course, because it's to give landlords more money.
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Mar 25, 2023 20:19
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Shooting Blanks posted:Harris County (Houston) routinely has the longest local ballot in the country. The last election here had between 90 and 103 elections to vote on, depending on your specific zip code. it took me like 20 minutes to vote (harris county resident) because there were so many different positions lol. zero time waiting in line, the time spent was entirely on voting.
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Mar 25, 2023 20:29
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Shooting Blanks posted:Unless we get more wet seasons like this past winter/spring for the Colorado River, Arizona could become quite literally a ghost town on that 10-20 year timeline being discussed by now. Push comes to shove they'll eventually stop growing cotton in the desert before they literally depopulate cities. That will solve literally the whole problem even in forever drought.
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Mar 25, 2023 20:29
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Charliegrs posted:I don't have any numbers to back this up, but a crap ton of Californians moved to Arizona in the last few decades and the state has gone from being one of the reddest in the country to pretty solidly purple. Biden won the state in 2020 and we had 2 Dem senators for like 5 minutes until Sinema started showing her true colors then left to be independent. So yeah the housing prices shot through the roof but also it most likely turned the state into a somewhat more liberal place. pencilhands posted:The top 10 moved to states in 2022: Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arizona, Idaho, Alabama, and Oklahoma. SC and Tennessee have too much rural/exurban population for their cities to offset, and I don't see them breaking their Republican stranglehold any time soon. Aggressive state legislatures could even begin to reverse the gains that places like Nashville and Charleston have seen because people are not going to want to live in places where their identities are suppressed or criminalized and they can't get medical care. Florida is a really weird case where its liberal cities are actually starting to become conservative, especially Miami. Seems like self-selection might be involved, and accelerated a lot when their shittiest resident became President and they elected the King of Ivy League Fake Culture Warriors as their Governor. State boundaries have just become more arbitrary over time, people don't identify with their home states, and at some point - although it could take decades - our political structures will probably start to reflect that.
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Mar 25, 2023 20:36
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Shooting Blanks posted:Harris County (Houston) routinely has the longest local ballot in the country. The last election here had between 90 and 103 elections to vote on, depending on your specific zip code. An America specific problem seems to be that bunch of positions that really should not be elected are elected. And not just because they make the ballot long. Like...electrd judges or sheriffs. But then again, if I had to vote on local law enforcement officers, I sure as gently caress would make sure I vote every time so  Mellow Seas posted:
Hell I basically find more in common with almost every other city dweller in the world I have met and talked with than the rural population of my own country. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Mar 25, 2023 |
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Mar 25, 2023 20:42
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DarkCrawler posted:An America specific problem seems to be that bunch of positions that really should not be elected are elected. And not just because they make the ballot long. Like...electrd judges or sheriffs. But then again, if I had to vote on local law enforcement officers, I sure as gently caress would make sure I vote every time so
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Mar 25, 2023 20:45
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DarkCrawler posted:An America specific problem seems to be that bunch of positions that really should not be elected are elected. And not just because they make the ballot long. Like...electrd judges or sheriffs. But then again, if I had to vote on local law enforcement officers, I sure as gently caress would make sure I vote every time so You aren't voting on officers but on their theoretical boss. This is important because even the best chief can only cause so much change.
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Mar 25, 2023 20:58
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Mellow Seas posted:SC and Tennessee have too much rural/exurban population for their cities to offset, and I don't see them breaking their Republican stranglehold any time soon. Aggressive state legislatures could even begin to reverse the gains that places like Nashville and Charleston have seen because people are not going to want to live in places where their identities are suppressed or criminalized and they can't get medical care. my conservative parents retired to Tennessee from SoCal to save on taxes and now spend way more that they saved on flights and travel expenses to see their grandkids. I think they really thought my wife and I would move to Nashville instead of going back to San Diego like we always told them we would. My wife is in women's health, and don't want to risk her getting shot by a crazy person/arrested by the state for practicing medicine. We also removed them from our estate guardianship plan because we don't want our kids raised in Tennessee. I hate seeing my mother upset, but 'm not sure what they expected, really.
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Mar 25, 2023 21:06
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Mellow Seas posted:People laugh at the idea of Blue Texas because it's been talked about for 20 years and hasn't happened, but that doesn't mean it never will. Specifically, the serious claim back to the Bush years was always "starting by 2024 or so, if current trends hold" but there were always people breathlessly going "could this be the year?" and being wrong.
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Mar 25, 2023 21:13
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Killer robot posted:Specifically, the serious claim back to the Bush years was always "starting by 2024 or so, if current trends hold" but there were always people breathlessly going "could this be the year?" and being wrong. So if you look at the trend in presidential elections since the Nixon era, you might not really see it happening any time soon (Y axis is +R margin):  If you look since Bush's election, it looks like it's going to happen by the end of the decade.  The trend might go back clearly to the 90s if you account for the Perot factor and Clinton (and his party) being more conservative than Obama, who in turn was more conservative than Biden (the President, anyway, not so much the Senator). And, of course, as always, we have no actual idea. Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Mar 25, 2023 |
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Mar 25, 2023 21:31
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Mellow Seas posted:
The OK metro areas (OKC and Tulsa) are not "liberal" in any real sense IMO. They do elect democrats in the very urban districts but they are still red/purple. In OK county (where OKC is) for example, the pro-legalize weed vote got like 50.2% Both metro areas went for Trump as well (barely), if I recall correctly. One of the reasons OK is so dipshit red is that even the cities aren't really blue, just somewhat less insane than the blood red suburbs and rural areas.
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Mar 25, 2023 21:37
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:The OK metro areas (OKC and Tulsa) are not "liberal" in any real sense. They do elect democrats in the very urban districts but they are still red/purple. In OK county (where OKC is) for example, the pro-legalize weed vote got like 50.2% Tulsa probably would be really blue but welp, genocides have long-lasting effects. Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Mar 25, 2023 |
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Mar 25, 2023 21:39
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Fister Roboto posted:You need rent and price controls in conjunction with UBI, otherwise you might as well just be giving landlords more money. I'm in favor of both, of course. Yep. The solution to “the bully keeps taking my lunch money” is not a little more lunch money.
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Mar 25, 2023 21:49
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Fister Roboto posted:You need rent and price controls in conjunction with UBI, otherwise you might as well just be giving landlords more money. I'm in favor of both, of course. fair. guillotines also work
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Mar 25, 2023 21:59
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:Both metro areas went for Trump as well (barely), if I recall correctly. One of the reasons OK is so dipshit red is that even the cities aren't really blue, just somewhat less insane than the blood red suburbs and rural areas. The precincts within the I-44/35/240 trapezoid have voted anywhere from 55/45 to 80/20 Democrat the last couple elections, but OKC is so huge that “inner core” is outweighed by everything else. Norman is the most liberal city in the state but it’s not big enough to carry it’s own county. Hell, western Norman is growing fast enough it’s starting to Edmond up the whole city.
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Mar 25, 2023 22:44
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DarkCrawler posted:This dichotomy has always been super-weird to me, because that is basically how you can affect your actual surroundings the fastest. Yet the more local the election, the less there is interest, except with EU elections bucking the trend at least here with the biggest remit but least interest. The EU elections are for the EU parliament, which is little more than an advisory body. The real power resides with the nationally elected governments (and the representatives they send to Brussels).
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Mar 25, 2023 22:46
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SixFigureSandwich posted:The EU elections are for the EU parliament, which is little more than an advisory body. The real power resides with the nationally elected governments (and the representatives they send to Brussels). Eh, actual power isn't necessarily the determining factor, our president doesn't do poo poo and it is still the most popular election.
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Mar 25, 2023 22:59
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I think people overstate the "your local government matters most" argument because most people are stuck in the country they're born in, but people can very easily leave their state and leaving their county or municipality is hardly even worthy of notice. And your local government isn't making determinations on things like whether to go to war. Add on top the state of journalism and yeah, it's no surprise people are disengaged. They don't vote in the primaries and they don't have enough information to do much except vote for their party, which is why the some of the worst elements of said party cruise to so many easy victories. (It would be good, maybe, if somehow social media was used to create local discussion communities. Instead of talking to 10,000 random people out of the 200 million who care about Trump, why not talk to the 10,000 people in your town about your town?)
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Mar 25, 2023 22:59
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Mellow Seas posted:I think people overstate the "your local government matters most" argument because most people are stuck in the country they're born in, but people can very easily leave their state and leaving their county or municipality is hardly even worthy of notice. And your local government isn't making determinations on things like whether to go to war. I don’t think it’s overstated, for a number of reasons: 1) “All politics is local” is a truism, even for national-level things politicking starts at the local level, 2) turnout for local elections is horrifyingly low across the country so local politics should be the easiest to influence, and 3) local politics affects you in much more subtle (or not) ways than national politics does, like zoning laws. Your local city council isn’t deciding whether you’re getting fed to the war machine but it is deciding whether to conduct pogroms against unhoused people.
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Mar 25, 2023 23:06
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Wont rent control just ensure that places to live are harder to find? Seems to me like a much better solution is some kind of program to build as much new housing as possible and aggressively flood the market.
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Mar 25, 2023 23:07
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The way to bring rents down is to decommodify housing. They keep going up and will continue to do so until the next collapse their doing so causes because every economic system is designed to facilitate and ensure housing prices continue to rise, for the benefit of homeowners and landlords. You're not building your way out of that.
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Mar 25, 2023 23:13
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pencilhands posted:Wont rent control just ensure that places to live are harder to find? It's probably a problem that needs a multifaceted solution, but also needs examination on a case by case. In some cases, you already do have supply being hoarded - people don't want to sell/rent out below certain values to avoid devaluing what they have. Adding more supply might just lead to more hoarding so long as the wealthy have the money to buy it up. Also, where and what sort of housing you build is going to be a factor to. Or at least every time I feel like I see big new housing projects....they build big rear end sprawling suburbs in the middle of nowhere which causes problems in the long run.
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Mar 25, 2023 23:21
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Mellow Seas posted:I think people overstate the "your local government matters most" argument because most people are stuck in the country they're born in, but people can very easily leave their state and leaving their county or municipality is hardly even worthy of notice. And your local government isn't making determinations on things like whether to go to war. Change on the local and state level is much quicker than federally and while the budgets are smaller they have huge impacts on day to day life. Policing and education are LARGELY local and state issues, healthcare spending on the state level if matched by the federal government, and smaller elections mean more stinginess if you are willing to organize.
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Mar 25, 2023 23:38
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Really good points all around. If you were to make an analogy between finances and political influence, local politics would be "doing your job" (effort will produce modest and sustainable results) vs. investing in an risky startup* (effort might change everything but is very likely to be worthless). It's obvious which one is more worth your time and resources, but people make the wrong choice a lot. * Or, if you wanted to be uncharitable, playing the lottery.
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Mar 26, 2023 00:16
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pencilhands posted:Seems to me like a much better solution is some kind of program to build as much new housing as possible and aggressively flood the market. Yes. Of course. It is common sense. There are a lot of places in America in which there is an oversupply of housing, and renting or buying a home in those places is dirt cheap. The reason why housing prices are expensive in highly desirable places undergoing population booms is no great mystery. There are many practical barriers to the following idea, but a a major public housing program would be such a great use of government money, and would improve the lives of many Americans. Oxyclean posted:Or at least every time I feel like I see big new housing projects....they build big rear end sprawling suburbs in the middle of nowhere which causes problems in the long run. The reason why they do this is because 1) the land is cheaper, 2) suburban housing is what a lot of Americans want, and 3) building new housing in already developed neighborhoods can be difficult politically/practically in many areas. Many Americans oppose new housing developments in their neighborhoods. Oxyclean posted:In some cases, you already do have supply being hoarded - people don't want to sell/rent out below certain values to avoid devaluing what they have. Adding more supply might just lead to more hoarding so long as the wealthy have the money to buy it up. I don't think this is very common. Usually in places where lots of people want to live and housing prices are high, there isn't enough supply. I don't think your idea makes sense. If I were a landlord, I would prefer to collect a medium amount of rent, instead of no rent at all on a property I owned. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Mar 26, 2023 |
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Mar 26, 2023 00:35
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silence_kit posted:I don't think this is very common. Usually in places where lots of people want to live and housing prices are high, there isn't enough supply. Sure, but what if leaving one of your properties vacant made your other 9 properties worth 15% more? That's basically what's going on, landlords are calculating the breakpoint where they can maximize overall profit even if they don't rent out all their units. And the more properties they own, the larger the margin they have to play with.
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Mar 26, 2023 00:49
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