old man yells at cloud

gistfile1.md

friend: http://www.its.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/10/PB-Income-Segregation-and-Land-Use.pdf
cwage: nnnnnngh
cwage: "In contrast to the aforementioned findings, the measure of state political involvement is associated with lower levels of economic segregation. This suggests that segregation is lower where higher levels of government have greater influence, but higher where regulatory power is more concentrated in the hands of local decision makers."
cwage: that makes my head explode
cwage: of COURSE the segregation was lower with state political involvement
cwage: it's a continuous process of kabuki theatre that eventually expires
cwage: at which point the regulatory power there, as well, ends up where? you guessed it. in the hands of local decision makers
cwage: who, shockingly, are rarely interested in continuing to provide affordable housing
cwage: so by all means if they are proposing that in order for housing to be affordable it requires this "state political involvement", then fine: enact state fiat that all real estate is subsumed and controlled by the state
cwage: fuckin do it, and god be with you
cwage: otherwise this sort of myopic pencilpushing is soooo duuuuuumb
friend: well, their recommendations are explicitly stated: relax density restrictions, add affordable housing in wealthy areas
friend: so no, not all state-owned/controlled real estate
cwage: it's like if you have this giant mostly-barren farm field with weeds
cwage: and you're like "weeds seem highly correlated to shitty old-fashioned farming!"
cwage: "in contrast to these findings, though, the areas with high levels of OUR State(tm) farming with artificial pesticides, fertilizers and an army of weedpullers seems highly correlated to fewer weeds"
cwage: ... ok, great
cwage: it doesn't take a fuckin genius to realize that when the infusion of State(tm) farming goes away the land is ravaged and weeds move in
cwage: so unless they have a plan all this high tech to fuckin be everywhere, what is the pooooint
cwage: but yeah the anti-density thing is good
cwage: although that can be weird too
cwage: density is rarely organic at the level it is in big cities
friend: the 'add affordable housing in wealthy areas' thing amused me
cwage: but it's also been subsidized for so long it ... kinda is organic now
cwage: i guess if their point is "just let density take care of itself" then i agree
friend: there are a few neighborhoods in SF which are basically rich people in mansions, frozen in amber
cwage: but guessing with everyone being a goddamn simcity technocrat it'll never be that relaxed
cwage: the last two points of that pdf are just perplexing to me
cwage: i don't know how they can be so myopic and it makes me think it's willful
cwage: like sticking your finger in the ocean and observing ripples and being like "yeah, .. the ripples went out .. i .. i think we can control this ocean's waves. more study is required, of course" adjusts glasses, requests another grant
friend: and i've made the point several times to pro-development folks (i am pro-development) that i don't see why we have to limit development to the formerly industrial areas of the city, when neighborhoods like seacliff (which is extremely rich) are the lowest in density
friend: slap a few BMR towers in
friend: let's see how that goes
friend: yeah well this might also be a freshman research paper
cwage: shrug
cwage: as if you can't tell my tolerance is thin
cwage: this sort of shit is EVERYWHERE here
cwage: patting themselves on the back for how progressive they are
cwage: i am sooooo tired of this modern technocratic variant of half-assed leftism where they think that because they swoop in to one neighborhood and enact a few statutes that they've fixed the problem or found a scalable solution
cwage: i.e. to reference the farmer analogy up there
cwage: you can't take control of the means of production and price system half-assedly and comingle it with capitalism
cwage: if you want to do that and have it solve problems everywhere, you have to do it everywhere
cwage: and also, mind you, be an all-knowing god that is better at information dispersal than a market/price system
cwage: pretty sure marx advocated that. and a few countries tried it and it didn't go so well
cwage: not to get all godwin but for fuck's sake
cwage: you can't mix and match this shit
cwage: you can't micromanage a real estate economy and pretend it's a market
cwage: collect taxes, fine, whatever: there's a case to be made, however grotesque, for "socialist democracy" as some stable equilibrium point for now (I disagree, i think we're all fucked and headed down the shitter)
cwage: but civic planners can go find a short pier for all i'm concerned
friend: well... the point of the paper is looking at how micromanagement exacerbates segregation
friend: so they agree with you?
cwage: upper-middle class leeches
cwage: no
cwage: just THEIR micromanagement
cwage: (of course)
cwage: once it reverts to the evil local authorities it all goes to hell
cwage: so like what's the point
cwage: when i say "their" here i mean "state" as opposed to "local"
cwage: the authors may not be sympathetic directly to the idea that the state is better at this somehow but the conclusion implied seems to be that somehow "hm, the state is better at this than the locals" is indicative of some sort of solution
cwage: which means nothing unless the implication is also that you're gonna figure out how to have the state of CA manage real estate in every muncipality
cwage: mostly i am just old man yelling at cloud
cwage: i dislike analysis of extremely complex -- like NP hard complex -- systems with extremely almost naively/idiotically/comically small sample sets that result in a conclusion presented in this sortof faux-intellectual "hmmmm yes, this is interesting, we really have something here!" tone
cwage: haaaaate it
cwage: go read hayek, he disproved this nonsense 70 years ago. and then go get a real job
cwage: but that's just, like, my opinion man
cwage: this is a good rant i should post it