urbanMSP

As to voting strategically with RCV, I can see how with hindsight it seems like ranking Hodges second might have been a good strategy. However, absent any real information about how others are voting, it seems to me that in the moment there is little benefit in trying to be strategic other than simply ranking candidates in one's preferred order.

Am I missing something?

The whole thing with ranking Nekima Levy-Pounds third is kind of a cop-out too, isn't it?

I suppose, but I think one example of the value of RCV was Ward 11. Without it, I'd have to make a decisions as to which of the challengers is most likely to beat the incumbent on their own. That was almost certainly going to be the straight white dude. RCV meant I could vote for the queer black lady first even if I feared she didn't have as good a shot.

The whole thing with ranking Nekima Levy-Pounds third is kind of a cop-out too, isn't it?

It's signalling. I feel like a lot of people tried to express themselves through their ballots.

I do think that a lot of people are so used to voting strategically with their first vote that they are having a hard time breaking away from that. In reality you want to vote your heart with your first vote and then use your remaining votes more and more strategically.

How exactly does one use them strategically?

Voting based on your perception of the candidates' popularity and likelihood of winning, or to prevent a disliked candidate from winning, is considered strategic voting. The goal is to get at least the first-choice to be everyone's sincere preference, whereas people might use the second and third choices to vote in terms of who they think is likely to win.

For a more concrete example: Lots of people didn't want to vote Green after the spoiler situation with Ralph Nader in 2000, so they strategically voted for Kerry in 2004. Under RCV, they'd cast a genuine first-choice Green vote, and a second-choice strategic vote for Kerry.

Or, an example from this election, people who filled their ballots to do as much as they could to deny Hoch a victory.

But how? Ok, with only there choices I definitely understand people ranking Frey ahead of their real third choice, but if we had a proper implementation, how would that help over ranking him fourth, as I would have had I had the chance?

As some point, there are diminishing returns. Is the sixth choice of a majority of voters really better than the first choice of a plurality?

Looks like a good interview with Frey here with some questions about zoning and density and the like:

http://tcbmag.com/news/articles/2018/ja ... e-cops-and

" Q Are you planning some sort of overhaul of the city’s zoning code to accommodate greater density?
The city needs to grow. We have plans, districts and codes that overlay one another and are often inconsistent and ambiguous. That’s one of the problems. We have city goals and values. Comprehensive plans. Small-area plans. Zoning code. Building code. We need to provide more clarity. And there are areas that can and need to grow.

Q Such as?
Under-utilized blocks with surface parking lots and other types of dead space. I’m arguing for looking at the lowest hanging fruit by parcel. Every neighborhood has it."

If I were a Minneapolisite who voted for Frey for any urbanist/YIMBY/Vision Zero/etc. reason, that interview would give me heartburn. He's already unwilling to defend some of the things that were in his platform.

I hope the council renders him pointless.

Boy, that's super condescending to assume that people who disagreed with him were only focused on "narrative and character traits" and actually don't understand policy and oh if they did they would of course agree with me.

First, we need to dispel the notion that increased supply of housing negatively affects affordability.

Except that's not what people are saying. I don't think we can say that putting luxury housing in "desireable" areas hasn't increased housing costs. I don't think we can say it has, either. We just don't know because the forces acting within small communities are many, varied and complicated. For one thing, luxury housing attracts a certain clientele (with money) and that very well could drive up prices of all sorts of things in a community. People can be pushed out even if all the construction is on parking lots. It's not direct displacement but it's still displacement.

I do appreciate his saying the Nicollet streetcar is dead and that he's looking at a W. Broadway streetcar. That's something.

If I were a Minneapolisite who voted for Frey for any urbanist/YIMBY/Vision Zero/etc. reason, that interview would give me heartburn. He's already unwilling to defend some of the things that were in his platform.

Such as?

First, we need to dispel the notion that increased supply of housing negatively affects affordability.

Except that's not what people are saying. I don't think we can say that putting luxury housing in "desireable" areas hasn't increased housing costs. I don't think we can say it has, either.

Okay I don't necessarily want to get into a whole debate about the micro-economics in a narrow geographic scale. But just because *you* are saying there's no clear-cut answer does not mean that *many people* aren't saying that new housing is driving up existing housing costs. People are literally saying that word-for-word at planning commission meetings, in letters, in random conversations I have with less-engaged friends or families, random folks on twitter. It's a very pervasive accusation. People even go so far as to claim that replacing SFHs with apartments means SFH supply will shrink and prices will go up as a result (because an apartment or condo is not a substitute good for a house and townhomes definitely don't exist and families never live in apartments) - forcing more people to live in suburbs. I've heard you make that claim at the neighborhood level and seen others make it at the city level (Denis Houle says it here). (side note, it is also pervasive to say that new development is lowering nearby property values, even beyond immediately adjacent parcels impacted by looming buildings - parking/traffic/etc are cited).

The underlying assumption is that a developer who can make a 4-6 story building renting $2,000/mo units pencil is the cause of nearby property value increases, rather than seizing on existing market trends that allow them to make said project pencil in the first place. New landlords charging $1,200 for a "junior 1BR" doesn't make landlords with shitty 1960s walkups suddenly realize they can charge more for their outdated building, developers realize they can charge more for new units because existing landlords are already raising rents without making improvements. But there is obviously a separate phenomenon where buildings that bleed into the edges of other neighborhoods and bring with them new commercial spaces (or, replacing existing commercial geared toward lower-income incumbents) catered to wealthier folks makes raising the rent possible in the areas nearby. It's not cut and dry, by project/neighborhood/situation, but I believe there's enough body of evidence to say that in most cases, new supply isn't a major driving force of housing cost increase in this city. Whether you agree with that statement or not, it doesn't help to completely mis-characterize real conversations that are happening around how development interacts with existing housing costs.

I hope the council renders him pointless.

I don't think there's much evidence that the new council majority will be YIMBYer than Frey -- in fact, I'd suggest that it's likely to be just the opposite.

I hope the council renders him pointless.

I don't think there's much evidence that the new council majority will be YIMBYer than Frey -- in fact, I'd suggest that it's likely to be just the opposite.

I'm talking less about his YIMBY comments in that interview and more just his general "all in unity" message that will undoubtedly work out as "unity my way" in practice.

To be fair, "unity my way" is just, uh, politics.

Regardless, I think lefties worried about Frey can relax. The council pretty clearly has a progressive mandate, so even if Frey isn't on board 100 percent, they can generally ignore him. (Maybe I'm biased...in my conversations with Frey—both as my council member and in professional settings—I've found him smart and reasonable, even if sometimes a little too triangulational).

First, we need to dispel the notion that increased supply of housing negatively affects affordability.

Except that's not what people are saying. I don't think we can say that putting luxury housing in "desireable" areas hasn't increased housing costs. I don't think we can say it has, either.

Okay I don't necessarily want to get into a whole debate about the micro-economics in a narrow geographic scale. But just because *you* are saying there's no clear-cut answer does not mean that *many people* aren't saying that new housing is driving up existing housing costs.

But no one is saying "increased supply of housing negatively affects affordability." They are saying that new *luxury* housing negatively affects affordability. And that's almost certainly true in some cases. As I said, it's being overgeneralized but that shouldn't cause us to completely discount the argument.

People even go so far as to claim that replacing SFHs with apartments means SFH supply will shrink and prices will go up as a result (because an apartment or condo is not a substitute good for a house and townhomes definitely don't exist and families never live in apartments) - forcing more people to live in suburbs. I've heard you make that claim at the neighborhood level and seen others make it at the city level

It's true that I did say that but that was in a very specific context. Microeconomics matters. Even so, I've never said that alone should be a reason to not build apartments. It's a minor factor at most.

New landlords charging $1,200 for a "junior 1BR" doesn't make landlords with shitty 1960s walkups suddenly realize they can charge more for their outdated building,

Oh yes it does. I saw it in my own neighborhood. Once the luxury buildings went in, some older properties were quickly updated and presumably the rents increased. That's smart business for property owners. Not so great for people trying to stay in place. It's a real effect we have to acknowledge and address.

But there is obviously a separate phenomenon where buildings that bleed into the edges of other neighborhoods and bring with them new commercial spaces (or, replacing existing commercial geared toward lower-income incumbents) catered to wealthier folks makes raising the rent possible in the areas nearby. It's not cut and dry, by project/neighborhood/situation, but I believe there's enough body of evidence to say that in most cases, new supply isn't a major driving force of housing cost increase in this city.

Surely it's not an effect that applies city-wide. It's very localized but that doesn't mean it's not important.

Whether you agree with that statement or not, it doesn't help to completely mis-characterize real conversations that are happening around how development interacts with existing housing costs.

And I don't believe I've "completely mischaracterized" any of the conversations I've been in. I don't claim to have been to every single development meeting in the city. Can we try to remember to assume good faith among ourselves?

But no one is saying "increased supply of housing negatively affects affordability." They are saying that new *luxury* housing negatively affects affordability. And that's almost certainly true in some cases. As I said, it's being overgeneralized but that shouldn't cause us to completely discount the argument.

This is splitting hairs to the extreme. Save for the few affordable housing projects going up, almost all development has been actual luxury, marketed as luxury, hated as luxury by neighbors, or some combination of those. New housing is increased supply, and when people talk about it in a frame of general housing prices, this is what they mean.

The effect isn't limited to apartments- the conversation from concerned residents in Seattle blasts new townhomes that replace single family homes as being making the city expensive rather than helping. It's a refrain I've seen on facebook comment sections, by livability groups, etc. But this analysis showed that only 12 neighborhoods in Seattle saw new multi-fam townhome sale prices exceed single-family home prices (and yes, those 12 neighborhoods accounted for 2/3 of city-wide new-MF home sales, so it's important to focus on it). But as the article notes, while there's no way to know for sure what the outcome would be without that zoning, we have a pretty good idea that it would be one of 1) upscaling the old run-down houses that were demolished for townhomes, or 2) razing them for new houses built to maximum SFH envelopes.

Oh yes it does. I saw it in my own neighborhood. Once the luxury buildings went in, some older properties were quickly updated and presumably the rents increased. That's smart business for property owners. Not so great for people trying to stay in place. It's a real effect we have to acknowledge and address.

Again, you are confusing cause with effect. The simple action of a developer introducing new, nice, expensive units doesn't unlock the older building landlord's *ability* to raise rents. If a developer is already penciling an expensive unit, the demand was already there, and existing landlords are already aware of it. It's certainly possible that a small ma/pop landlord just didn't have access to the market information letting them know they can charge more (or, for moral reasons they chose not to for some time), but that's very, very rare. In almost all cases, landlords are leading the rent increase charge while developers follow suit. That includes property management firms who buy from smaller landlords and immediately up the rent. The other case is the neighborhood edge situation I detailed, which is less relevant for, say, a place like Lowry Hill or Ecco or Linden Hills or even LHE where neighbors (who themselves have contributed to, and brag about, making/keeping their neighborhood more appealing) are still using this rhetoric.

And I don't believe I've "completely mischaracterized" any of the conversations I've been in. I don't claim to have been to every single development meeting in the city. Can we try to remember to assume good faith among ourselves?

Well, I guess I wouldn't make claims that include "no one" if you're at a fraction of meetings. I didn't assume bad faith, just wanted to correct the misconception that many (whether that's a majority or not, I'm not sure) people do in fact hold that belief - including yourself, as evidenced in your reply giving me an anecdote supporting the very claim.