As cities rethink single-family zoning, traditional ideas of the American Dream are challenged

[conuly]

The article is interesting enough, but what got me is the comments.

I know, I know! But I like to look at the comments if only I can see what inane meme the far right is trying to promulgate today. (And it almost always is the far right. Say what you like about us bleeding-hearts, we've got no grasp of that level of propaganda.)

Today it appears they're going for some sort of hybrid "the housing crisis would vanish if it wasn't for illegal immigration" garbage, so here's the facts: There is nothing like 30 million undocumented immigrants in the US - reliable statistics put the number closer to 11 million, which is a tiny percentage of the population. In fact, it's approximately 3.5% of the population, which interestingly is about the total population of LGBT individuals in America. Slightly less.

I really should be glad. If I hadn't looked up the numbers, I'd never have put it together that the same people who never stop banging the drum about undocumented immigrants also whine and whine and whine about how LGBT people get "too much" airtime and attention paid to their issues given the percentage of the population they comprise. Ain't that a lovely bit of hypocrisy?

Comments

[cloudsinvenice]

Wow. I'm used to colossal right-wing hypocrisy but that's a particularly flagrant departure from logic.

[conuly]

It's part of a general tactic to make it seem like undocumented immigrants are a huge enormous crisis and, you know, stealing our jobs etc.

Now, I was surprised, while doing my due diligence here, to see that the population of legal immigrants is much higher than I expected - nearly 15% of the population!

[dewline]

Also, if they can make being a refugee a crime every-damn-where, the new fascist international crowd will consider it a Bonus Victory. Evil thought, that one!

[silveradept]

Eh, seems more like two sides of the same argument to me - if people seem sympathetic, then it's a problem of "there are too many and they're taking over", and if people don't seem sympathetic, it's a problem of "there are too many and they're taking over." The desired result is the same, but the methods change based on what they feel will be the most effective messaging about how there are still too many immigrants/queers/minorities and any day now, civilization will collapse because proud conservative White people let Those People too close to the levers of power.

[conuly]

I'll tell you one thing - my life has taught me that the more people state something like received wisdom, the more likely it is to be false. That shoes in stores thing? False - the health department doesn't care.

After all this vague, context-less (or sometimes outright false) declaiming against the perils of immigrants and open borders, I'm increasingly sure we should just be "Yeah, let's try that, see if it works out".

[silveradept]

Yes. And perhaps that "amnesty" thing as well, perhaps represented by the deferred action program producing a path to citizenship.

[conuly]

If we had open borders, how about "You can become a citizen after X years" with no strings attached?

[silveradept]

That sounds like a solid plan. More citizens doing things openly and not putting themselves in a position to be exploited by the unscrupulous is a good outcome.

[konsectatrix]

Honestly, the US does not and never did have anything resembling a "no place for people to live" problem, it's almost always a "difficulty with supply/demand in specific neighborhoods that people want to live in problem," along with a "people simply cannot afford housing" problem and certain segments of the population aren't receiving the benefits of segregation and redlining any more.

Hell, there's Fox Business's latest on pecentages of empty homes -- they're a click lower than usual overall, but in my industry, the quarterly report still indicates 1.5 million zombie foreclosures (these are specifically only the ones that are reported hung up in the judicial queue for whatever reasons so the foreclosure process is stalled and they're vacant and unmaintained by any entity), and the usual quoted number of 18 million vacancies overall is still being thrown around from 2004.

[cloudsinvenice]

I wouldn't have guessed that either! But apparently in the UK in 2017 it was 14%, so perhaps that's not such an unusual proportion for an English-speaking country - I'm assuming the spread of English is part of the reason for its appeal as a place to move to; people from a lot of other countries are likely to be able to manage in the language right away...

[quirkytizzy]

Yeah, those numbers would mean undocumented immigrants make up 10% of America's population - men, women, and children included. Those some bullshit numbers. But then, those kinds of assholes aren't the kind of people to think two seconds past a big scary number like that.

[altamira16]

The NIMBYism being discussed in this article is going on in places that see themselves as liberal. It is going on in San Francisco. It is going on where I live.

Hypocritical liberals are not saving the environment when they say "The environment is beautiful and should be saved for those of us that live here, and everyone else should go away." We are all on this planet together.

[conuly]

Canada it's even higher.

[conuly]

We'd have to have way more people for that problem - the only two nations in the world with a larger landmass are Canada and Russia, and it goes without saying that most of their land is frozen.

US has no idea what density is or looks like.

[conuly]

If they made up 10% of the population, along with the 15% of the population that's legal immigrants, then the fact that the sky has yet to fall would prove that we can absorb even more immigration.

[conuly]

It's all about land prices.

[peristaltor]

And it almost always is the far right. Say what you like about us bleeding-hearts, we've got no grasp of that level of propaganda.

Oh, yeah. There's millions being dumped into right-leaning (well, more like corporate leaning) misinfo. The am radio band especially has become completely unlistenable.

[peristaltor]

I'm curious: Have you read Henry George's Progress & Poverty? He covers that land value topic well, so well that I don't think what he wrote needs to be updated very much at all.

And he wrote that in 1879.

[conuly]

No, I haven't.

[conuly]

Enough to make you scream.