zlacker

>>etc-ho+(OP)
> favoring moderate causes and candidates and targeting progressives

for us non-americans, can someone please explain what general political aims the 'moderate' and 'progressive' parties represent? And where are they on the republican democrat spectrum?

>>willva+i7
The article goes out of its way to avoid naming the cause which is: housing! More affordable homes! Valuing people over historic buildings and neighborhood character! You know, the kind of stuff that actually should be considered progressive

>>habitu+C8
so the progressives want more affordable homes, and the moderates don't?

>>willva+Q9
Everyone claims to wants more affordable homes, there's just a disagreement about how to best achieve it, and a certain amount of money spent on obfuscation and practically counterproductive policies (arguably on all sides); property owners are a major political force on all sides of SF politics, and some of them want to keep prices high.

The "progressives" generally want to limit gentrification, prevent renters from being evicted, and add more subsidized housing. The "moderates" generally want to make it easier to build more housing of any type. You could broadly characterize the two groups as "default skeptical" vs. "default supportive" of real estate developers.

But housing is only one point of disagreement (albeit one of the most significant), plenty of people have more nuanced positions than this, and these camps are not entirely uniform across issues. Other points of recent disagreement include Covid lockdowns, what the school board should focus on, how hard prosecutors should go after police misconduct vs. minor crime, responses to the homeless, how much power the board of supervisors should have vs. the mayor's office, ...

>>jacobo+gd
For context, I think it's important to highlight that 60% of SF renters are in rent controlled units. The split between building affordable and not affordable housing has a huge impact on the cities "soul". It's quite literally choosing one future vs another, in many folks minds.

>>iancmc+Zf
Rent controlled does not mean below market rate, and affordability isn’t poured in concrete so “building affordable and not affordable housing” is a nonsensical statement.

>>shuckl+Wn
It is though.

It's true that affordability isn't poured into concrete, but it is baked into each and every real estate transaction.

A new luxury high rise needs to have x number of affordable units by law. As you point out, it's true that they don't build the affordable units much or any different than their other units.

But, the way the whole financial side of the thing is structured is completely different than it would be if the laws were different.

A home is just as much a mortgage as it is a physical object.