How do we feel about papa joe this far into his presidency, would you vote for him in reelection?

[pmv]

It’s not an American tradition, the UK is being destroyed by exactly the same thing.

Really? We don't have 'zoning' here. Where I live is a mixture of low-rise and mid-rise housing, and commercial and even industrial buildings - multiple new medium-rise blocks have gone up recently, each one had an argument waged over it, but there's no absolute 'zoning' rule that bans them.

It's true, admitedly, that the planning laws have been repeatedly changed recently, as our government keeps flip-flopping over everything as we get a new PM every month, so I might have lost track of exactly what the position is. Scrambling to find what the law actually is now, I found this, which says Osborne was trying to introduce US-type 'zoning' rules, but we've had five different Prime Ministers since then, so God alone knows.

Zoning: American dreams or going Dutch?

The Chancellor is determined to get us building more homes. I’m genuinely convinced of that. What I’m much less convinced of it’s that his current set of reforms will let this happen at scale or that the homes that get built will be affordable to buy or rent for most people on normal wages. He’s …

blog.shelter.org.uk

 

[pmv]

My exact point is they aren’t defending those communities - they are hurting them. The UFT is not defending the most marginalized communities of New York, they are screwing them, all while pretending otherwise.

That might be the case in that particular instance, my point is the culture and politics of such unions is very different in different contexts and circumstances. Hence a blanket opposition to unions is going to cause harm as often as it does anything positive.

 

[fskimospy]

Really? We don't have 'zoning' here. Where I live is a mixture of low-rise and mid-rise housing, and commercial and even industrial buildings - multiple new medium-rise blocks have gone up recently, each one had an argument waged over it, but there's no absolute 'zoning' rule that bans them.

Yes, the UK has super destructive land use policies.

The UK really needs better housing policy

Things are very very bad

www.slowboring.com

 

[fskimospy]

That might be the case in that particular instance, my point is the culture and politics of such unions is very different in different contexts and circumstances. Hence a blanket opposition to unions is going to cause harm as often as it does anything positive.

My claim is that public sector unions are bad because of a misalignment of priorities. Can anyone argue against that on the merits?

 

[MrSquished]

My response was that your reform did not address the problem that I identified, which it didn’t.

The primary issue you have shown with public sector unions is that they are too focused on making it extremely difficult to punish bad behavior and terminate employees, and will put that before all other priorities. I said that can be mitigated so unions still are able to push for higher wages and benefits, but have less sway with performance reviews/punishments and termination. You ignore all of that.

BAN THEM ALL. MY EXPERIENCE. NO NUANCE. BAN BAN BAN.

 

[fskimospy]

The primary issue you have shown with public sector unions is that they are too focused on making it extremely difficult to punish bad behavior and terminate employees, and will put that before all other priorities. I said that can be mitigated so unions still are able to push for higher wages and benefits, but have less sway with performance reviews/punishments and termination. You ignore all of that.

BAN THEM ALL. MY EXPERIENCE. NO NUANCE. BAN BAN BAN.

So again, still not engaging with my point. This is because you have no answer.

Also it’s amusing that you are apparently mad that I have actual expertise in this area. This should be something you welcome!

 

[igor_kavinski]

BAN THEM ALL. MY EXPERIENCE. NO NUANCE. BAN BAN BAN.

I wish this was a televised debate

 

[pmv]

My claim is that public sector unions are bad because of a misalignment of priorities. Can anyone argue against that on the merits?

Well, I would just point to real-world cases, like the large element of public support for the proposed nurses' strike. in the real world it doesn't always work out as you say.

 

[MrSquished]

So again, still not engaging with my point. This is because you have no answer.

Also it’s amusing that you are apparently mad that I have actual expertise in this area. This should be something you welcome!

All your points about misalignment of priorities have purely been about making it really hard to fire teachers. Not about wages and benefits. But you are immune to reading because you only have a big brush and no nuance.

 

[fskimospy]

All your points about misalignment of priorities have purely been about making it really hard to fire teachers. Not about wages and benefits. But you are immune to reading because you only have a big brush and no nuance.

That is very clearly untrue if you actually read my posts.

 

[fskimospy]

Well, I would just point to real-world cases, like the large element of public support for the proposed nurses' strike. in the real world it doesn't always work out as you say.

What does public support have to do with my point?

 

[pmv]

Yes, the UK has super destructive land use policies.

The UK really needs better housing policy

Things are very very bad

www.slowboring.com

Kind of ironic that that article takes Kwasi Kwarteng's proposals as a starting point, given that he crashed-and-burned almost immediately and we've had yet another PM, and change of direction, since then.

The article has a fair point about the Green Belt thing - I've always disliked the Green Belt idea (despite the fact I've in the past cycled out to those pretty green bits just outside the city, and would in some ways be sad to see them built over), because in practice it serves to protect the pretty views of the wealthy people who live right next to it and in it, while strangling the city as a whole. It's still a different problem, though, and not about the fixation on 'zoning', which I still say is a distinctively American thing.

The topic is complicated (I mean, the country is _crowded_ - far more so than the US, which is practically empty - and there are competing needs for land, such as the need to grow food, or the needs of what's left of the 'wildlife' in the country) and that article doesn't discuss the role of interest-rates and Thatcher's "right to buy" council housing.

The latter seems a massive part of the problem, given that in the past local authorities were the country's biggest home-builders, and a third of the population lived in council housing till Thatcher came along.

Interesting argument, as well, in that article about the 'positive' effects of the Blitz. Some of the sites bombed flat by the Lufwaffe were still vacant when I was growing up. You can still see the effects where a street suddenly changes into a more modern housing style in the middle of the street. One V2 impact site not far from me was only finally redeveloped a couple of years ago hacving sat empty for 70 years, for some weird reason.

 

[pmv]

What does public support have to do with my point?

It says that the public don't agree with you that public sector unions are necessarily bad.
The public has an interest in having workers in the health service be reasonably-paid and decently treated (and not, for example, constantly sleep-deprived or reliant on food-banks).

Edit - I mean, I don't deny that sometimes it can go wrong, and unions pursue their own narrow self-interest above all else. But often there's a coincidence of interest between the public and those working in the public sector.

I don't claim to know what factors determine how that plays out. If I did I'd probably be running the country by now.

 

[MrSquished]

The zoning is an issue in the US as I've said time and time again but as we've also seen time and time again the pure free market does not work for complex issues that affect all society. Private enterprise will do the worst things possible when unrestricted completely. Even just loosening some financial regulations ended up in the 2007 crash.

Zoning today is severely restrictive and must be loosened so we can build more housing where people want and need to live.

But just to eliminate zoning altogether is foolish as we have seen throughout the history of capitalism and almost a total free market economy.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Why? Be precise with the rationale why it’s “wrong.”

Why would it be inappropriate? Do you know what a city is?

The uses of the two buildings are exactly the same.

Im guessing none of you have played Sim City. I had the pleasure of playing it for a long time about 25 years ago and its the closest thing you can get to being a city planner and building a city from scratch. Sure you can dismiss this as "just a game", but its a fairly accurate simulation.

When you are planning and building a city to maximize value and thereby its desirability to attract people to live and work there you want to designate different zones. You have an industrial, residential, commercial zones. In the beginning you have small commercial buildings for various purposes from retail, office space, medical, etc. You have areas for single family homes to be built and amenities to serve them like green spaces, recreational areas and city attractions like zoos, aquariums, libraries and so on. Of course there is also municipality like police and fire dispersed throughout the city.

Assuming you are doing everything right, keeping up with transportation and energy needs, building infrastructure and most importantly setting the correct level of taxation to maintain all of it but low enough to attract large employers.

Eventually city centers will develop and business districts emerge of mostly high rise office space. As it grows, older commercial buildings are razed and single family units are replaced with high rise, high density multifamily buildings. On the outskirts, more single family units are torn down and replaced with "bee hive" apartment complexes. You might have 200 units available now where only six individual family homes once existed.

You want high density multifamily units constructed near high density office buildings as they are more efficiently placed together RATHER than taking up valuable real estate with individual single homes in the same location. Any developer will see the opportunity and either buy up the homes or somehow convince the city to use eminent domain.

Granted not all cities have to be the same, but ideally they should be built this way. You are free to disagree.

 

[pmv]

Yes, the UK has super destructive land use policies.

The UK really needs better housing policy

Things are very very bad

www.slowboring.com

To say it more concisely, yes, the way housing has been managed here has not been good.

But my point is merely that it's not the same issue as the rigid 'zoning' that the US (it seems, uniquely) practices - particularly this issue about mixing residential developments of different density. It's an entirely different set of problems/mistakes.

 

[MrSquished]

That is very clearly untrue if you actually read my posts.

Well for example I said teachers in many many areas are underpaid, and they need unions to fight for their wages. You pointed out NYC and said well the union there took lower wages so they could make it impossible for teachers to get fired. What's your point, I already agreed unions are bad when they just try to protect bad employees and that public unions should not be allowed to do that, so that would eliminate that problem. Crickets.

Also, that may have happened in NYC, but is that the reason teacher salaries are too low all over the country? Need more data.

 

[NWRMidnight]

My claim is that public sector unions are bad because of a misalignment of priorities. Can anyone argue against that on the merits?

Lets back up here.. how about you tell us what priorities you believe public sector unions have misaligned?

 

[fskimospy]

Lets back up here.. how about you tell us what priorities you believe public sector unions have misaligned?

I've already explained this. In the private sector the union and management have a shared interest in the success of the business because if either side gets too greedy and the business fails both sides suffer. This means broadly that both the UAW and the management of Ford Motor Company want to sell the most cars possible because it's in both of their interests.

In the public sector the city wants kids to have the best school experience and lowest crime possible. What does the UFT/PBA want? Money, job protection, and better working conditions. If the kids of NYC don't learn a thing what happens to NYC schools? Not much of anything - they certainly don't go out of business. Same with the police. The mayor might lose re-election though! The UFT and the police are acutely aware of this, which is why you see cops do things like engage in work slowdowns when elected officials annoy them or won't give them the raises they think they deserve. Perversely, higher crime and failing schools can benefit the pocketbooks of teachers and cops by forcing political leadership to take a deal they might otherwise not want. There is no shared goal because there doesn't have to be.

This is inherent to the public sector bargaining model and there's no way to fix it.

 

[NWRMidnight]

I've already explained this. In the private sector the union and management have a shared interest in the success of the business because if either side gets too greedy and the business fails both sides suffer. This means broadly that both the UAW and the management of Ford Motor Company want to sell the most cars possible because it's in both of their interests.

In the public sector the city wants kids to have the best school experience and lowest crime possible. What does the UFT/PBA want? Money, job protection, and better working conditions. If the kids of NYC don't learn a thing what happens to NYC schools? Not much of anything - they certainly don't go out of business. Same with the police. The mayor might lose re-election though! The UFT and the police are acutely aware of this, which is why you see cops do things like engage in work slowdowns when elected officials annoy them or won't give them the raises they think they deserve. Perversely, higher crime and failing schools can benefit the pocketbooks of teachers and cops by forcing political leadership to take a deal they might otherwise not want. There is no shared goal because there doesn't have to be.

This is inherent to the public sector bargaining model and there's no way to fix it.

Got it, thanks! Sorry, my tired brain (just came off a 12 hour shift and been up for over 20 hours), was correlating public sector with private sector, which is what confused me and made me question what you where considering misalignment of priorities.. my mistake. carry on.

 

[ivwshane]

I've already explained this. In the private sector the union and management have a shared interest in the success of the business because if either side gets too greedy and the business fails both sides suffer. This means broadly that both the UAW and the management of Ford Motor Company want to sell the most cars possible because it's in both of their interests.

In the public sector the city wants kids to have the best school experience and lowest crime possible. What does the UFT/PBA want? Money, job protection, and better working conditions. If the kids of NYC don't learn a thing what happens to NYC schools? Not much of anything - they certainly don't go out of business. Same with the police. The mayor might lose re-election though! The UFT and the police are acutely aware of this, which is why you see cops do things like engage in work slowdowns when elected officials annoy them or won't give them the raises they think they deserve. Perversely, higher crime and failing schools can benefit the pocketbooks of teachers and cops by forcing political leadership to take a deal they might otherwise not want. There is no shared goal because there doesn't have to be.

This is inherent to the public sector bargaining model and there's no way to fix it.

All I have is personal experience and stories I’ve read of other Union relationships in other countries but I completely disagree with the bolded. I’ve not experienced a Union that had the companies best interest in mind, in fact it’s been rather adversarial and negotiations usually go back in forth with regards to pay and to things like productivity.

 

[fskimospy]

All I have is personal experience and stories I’ve read of other Union relationships in other countries but I completely disagree with the bolded. I’ve not experienced a Union that had the companies best interest in mind, in fact it’s been rather adversarial and negotiations usually go back in forth with regards to pay and to things like productivity.

Of course unions are adversarial with management, that's inherent to the process. That doesn't change the fact that the union very much wants the business to succeed because if it fails they lose their jobs.

 

[K1052]

Im guessing none of you have played Sim City. I had the pleasure of playing it for a long time about 25 years ago and its the closest thing you can get to being a city planner and building a city from scratch. Sure you can dismiss this as "just a game", but its a fairly accurate simulation.

When you are planning and building a city to maximize value and thereby its desirability to attract people to live and work there you want to designate different zones. You have an industrial, residential, commercial zones. In the beginning you have small commercial buildings for various purposes from retail, office space, medical, etc. You have areas for single family homes to be built and amenities to serve them like green spaces, recreational areas and city attractions like zoos, aquariums, libraries and so on. Of course there is also municipality like police and fire dispersed throughout the city.

Assuming you are doing everything right, keeping up with transportation and energy needs, building infrastructure and most importantly setting the correct level of taxation to maintain all of it but low enough to attract large employers.

Eventually city centers will develop and business districts emerge of mostly high rise office space. As it grows, older commercial buildings are razed and single family units are replaced with high rise, high density multifamily buildings. On the outskirts, more single family units are torn down and replaced with "bee hive" apartment complexes. You might have 200 units available now where only six individual family homes once existed.

You want high density multifamily units constructed near high density office buildings as they are more efficiently placed together RATHER than taking up valuable real estate with individual single homes in the same location. Any developer will see the opportunity and either buy up the homes or somehow convince the city to use eminent domain.

Granted not all cities have to be the same, but ideally they should be built this way. You are free to disagree.

My point was that buildings of substantially differing heights/densities next to each other exist all over our major cities. They are not inherently improper or incompatible.

As for the Sim City comparison...lol. Sit through a ton of zoning meetings and let's see what you think after.

 

[brycejones]

Im guessing none of you have played Sim City. I had the pleasure of playing it for a long time about 25 years ago and its the closest thing you can get to being a city planner and building a city from scratch. Sure you can dismiss this as "just a game", but its a fairly accurate simulation.

Why can't we build cities like it's a video game is an interesting take.

 

[NWRMidnight]

All I have is personal experience and stories I’ve read of other Union relationships in other countries but I completely disagree with the bolded. I’ve not experienced a Union that had the companies best interest in mind, in fact it’s been rather adversarial and negotiations usually go back in forth with regards to pay and to things like productivity.

Wait.. having the companies best interest in mind and having their union member's best interests in mind are not one and the same. But they both rely on the same end goal: staying in business. There are a lot of unions out there, that don't necessarily have the best interests of the company in mind, but they do tend to cross paths when working for what's best for their union members..

Now, I work for a company that the union representatives have seats on the board of directors of the company. Long story as to why that came about. So their is a little more "closeness" between the Union and the Company and what's best for both the company and the union in general due to that. But that is very unusual.

From why I understand to be Fskimospy's perspective, he is right, every union's goal is to get the most for their member's without causing the company to go out of business. Has every union been successful at that.. no.. But, you also have to understand, that is not on the actual unions per say, but their members asking for to much, as they are the ones who are specifying what their demands are, an who vote on the contracts. The problem is most union members have the belief that every company makes ton's of money (Millions in profit) an believe they can meet every demand.. That is extremally short sighted and usually false. Most don't even have the basic understanding of the cost of doing business. Heck many can't even understand that they have the same "costs' like utilities, mortgages/rent, insurance, ect, we have to run a household, much less the added costs of doing business. Of course, that is a double edges sword, as there are industries out there that do have the ability to meet most demands, specially realistic demands.. (cough, cough, the rail road).