This interview makes no sense. She rambles on for a few minutes about the text of the plans and doing further investigation into the text of the plans. Then lists all the things that make 15 minute cities desirable.
This is all so dumb. People want housing, they need housing. Housing is expensive because of artificial scarcity and lack of a glut. The state is trying to incentivize the building of housing to increase supply, so they give subsidies and tax breaks to "developers" to, well, build. The whole point of this is to override the local bs which shuts down any kind of building.
Of course the developers want to build high density (as that's the most efficient and cost effective), in cities (where people actually want to live), but locals (who also want to live in the cities, and that they continue to do so supports high density as desirable) complain about high density. So the response to bogus claims of "high density is bad" was to present the concept of 15 minute cities to talk about the massive benefits of high density. Look at all the benefits of high density city living! No need to drive to get groceries! You can walk to work! We can invest in public parks and shared infrastructure! Now you have NYMBYs using talking points like this where they list the benefits of 15 minute cities and then furrow their brow like they "don't get it" and "who'd want these nice things?!"
And then the interview goes off into if it is really desirable to have low income families/kids live next to high income. So now we're trying to undermine the last 30 years of recognizing that demographic diversity builds strong neighborhoods? This is how you get ghettos: you set things up so the lower income can only afford to all live in one area.
This isn't an interview with a civil engineer, it's NYMBY astroturf.
I live in the Marina in SF, and it's really nice to not be required to have a car. I can walk to get groceries. I'm walking and biking distance to at least 5 public parks (on both city and federal land). I walk and bike to go to the restaurants and retail. I can even get to my doctor without driving.
I wish the Marina area and SF were even denser and the zoning allowed more street level shops and restaurants.
Not everyone wants to live in a dense city. It's perfectly understandable that you like density and want more of it but not everyone feels that way.
Even if it isn't what interests a person, I think it's reasonable to have empathy for people who moved into a location specifically because it had a level of density that met their needs and don't want to be repeatedly be forced out of their home to maintain the conditions they chose to live in-- particularly given host costly and disruptive moving is (severing ties with your community, loss of business relationships, substantial tax increases due to prop 13, and currently massive increases in the cost of financing due to higher interest rates).
Who? People who chose to live in an area in due to its low density (or more specifically because of the living conditions allowed by the low density), being subjected to intensification against their preferences would find themselves forced to move to maintain the conditions they originally purchased. It's doubly so a concern where established future land use and other policy set a reasonable expectation that these increases would not occur, only to have that overridden by distant politicians in furtherance of a arguably blunt objective.
It may well be that in a specific situation the increase is still the best option but that in no way invalidates the preferences someone who prefers things how they were or makes their loss any less real. And its only from a perspective of mutual understanding and empathy can good compromises be found, to the extent that they're possible.
I appreciate the follow-up, but I must confess that I'm still scratching my head here.
Is this legislation outlawing building sparsely? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems meant to strengthen Sacramento's ability to get California cities to meet the RHNA targets that they consistently miss, not make rural California urban.
What living conditions are a priori being imperiled by densification and where?
The tax base in the suburbs needs to increase to the point that it can actually support the massive amount of infrastructure needed to support their desired lifestyle. Much like rural areas, the suburbs are heavily subsidized by urban residents and businesses. If low density housing had to realize all of their actual costs, it would probably be a lot less desirable.
People are forced to deal with the issues you mention like being forced to move and more because of housing unaffordability because of NIMBY regulations. I have more empathy for them than somebody who "prefers less density"
That said, I disagree that the two are all that comparable comparable: NIMBY regulations don't force anyone out of their homes. Landlords that decide they can raise their rents and still find tenants may displace renters-- but that's the landlord's choice and generally increasing density increases rents regardless too because of the increased value of denser areas.
This particular law is also intended to defeat the CA Coastal Commission, who basically think nobody should be allowed to live near the beach (except single family homeowners) and that the only way to maximize access is to cover it in parking lots.
This is not nearly the only housing law passed though; AB1633 is one of the most important for cities. A funny thing about that one is that it was written by reps from San Francisco and has clauses that specifically in writing punish San Francisco.
(In California, most voters do support more housing but still elect NIMBYs at local levels, while supporting laws that punish them at higher levels. The exception is LA, where they still don't support anything good ever.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW9geBfC0yw
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