That’s a tricky one. The problem is that power is, more often than not, a one way street. Once organizations or people have it, they tend to not want to give it up. It takes a LOT of effort over long periods of time to walk that power back, and particularly when the money’s against it. The US is already practically a fascist (and I mean this in a textbook, unsensational sense) economy what with how tightly the public-private partnerships run, so you’re fighting a three way battle between getting the government, the investors, and the corporate leadership to all agree all at the same time to decrease their power. The corporates and investors have been getting some really sweetheart deals put of this arrangement, and they’re not going to want to walk away from easy money guaranteed by market coercion.
I think the path of least resistance here is going to be widespread local action, at the level of the state or below. It’s not unprecedented, this is more or less how marijuana legalization went mainstream. If we waited for the policy to change at the federal level, well… [Gestures wildly at the house of representatives] maybe your grandkids will live to see some moderate change. But the states and especially local government have a frankly shocking amount of power, and they beat the feds in legal battles a surprising amount of times when their laws come into conflict, though this is largely dependent on the views of the circuit of appeals court that presides over your area. The fifth circuit are a bunch of authoritarian whack jobs that once heard of the constitution but think it sounds like a pinko hippie, for example. But we’ll never get there if we don’t try, and effecting change at the local level is both possible and realistic. For my part, I’m working on creating the first YIMBY group in central California, and I want to work with others to pressure central valley urbans to have better urbanism, cheaper housing, more public transit, and all around be more livable and affordable.
That’s a tricky one. The problem is that power is, more often than not, a one way street. Once organizations or people have it, they tend to not want to give it up. It takes a LOT of effort over long periods of time to walk that power back, and particularly when the money’s against it. The US is already practically a fascist (and I mean this in a textbook, unsensational sense) economy what with how tightly the public-private partnerships run, so you’re fighting a three way battle between getting the government, the investors, and the corporate leadership to all agree all at the same time to decrease their power. The corporates and investors have been getting some really sweetheart deals put of this arrangement, and they’re not going to want to walk away from easy money guaranteed by market coercion.
I think the path of least resistance here is going to be widespread local action, at the level of the state or below. It’s not unprecedented, this is more or less how marijuana legalization went mainstream. If we waited for the policy to change at the federal level, well… [Gestures wildly at the house of representatives] maybe your grandkids will live to see some moderate change. But the states and especially local government have a frankly shocking amount of power, and they beat the feds in legal battles a surprising amount of times when their laws come into conflict, though this is largely dependent on the views of the circuit of appeals court that presides over your area. The fifth circuit are a bunch of authoritarian whack jobs that once heard of the constitution but think it sounds like a pinko hippie, for example. But we’ll never get there if we don’t try, and effecting change at the local level is both possible and realistic. For my part, I’m working on creating the first YIMBY group in central California, and I want to work with others to pressure central valley urbans to have better urbanism, cheaper housing, more public transit, and all around be more livable and affordable.