When The Housing Crisis Breaks The Political Spectrum
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- If there’s anything we find encouraging about the future of housing affordability, it’s that the “yes in my backyard” pro-housing movement crosses political and ideological lines. Unfortunately, the “not in my backyard” activists who oppose housing and neighbourhood change are also pretty diverse politically.
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"The state mandates they don't have a say over who their neighbors are going to be"
... What?
Never once in my life did I ever believe I had a say who my neighbors were.
What they really mean by this is "I don't want to live near poor people".
or brown people, or hipsters, or...
Not for all, but for some "neighbourhood character" is a dogwhistle.
Then there was that one person complaining about gentrification even though he was talking about a neighbourhood of single family houses? Bro doesn't even know the first thing about what he speaks. He's literally speaking FOR the actual landed gentry!
And they're still wrong. In every area where higher density goes in, property values haven't gone down, they've gone up. Yes, the townhouses are more affordable than your single family, home, but the townhouses aren't going to be sold to the guy who works the shake machine at Arby's, it's going to sold to an Arby's general manager, and his purchase has increased your underlying land value. In Tustin, California we have a lot of townhouses going in. They sell for 30-40% less than a single family, but they still cost $700,000 and people line up to pay it.
Yeah when I heard that I thought "You choose your neighbors by choosing where you move to, not by preventing people from moving to your neighborhood". Sheesh.
@@weatheranddarkness Instead of painting with a broad brush and suggesting people that like their area are all racist, you should try to understand their position and remove all obstacles to change. What specifically do they like about their community? Is it the architecture? Is it the people? Is it the scenery? Appeal to what people like, rather than constantly bringing up what they dislike.
Do they like the architecture? Build more pretty townhouses.
Do they like the people? More housing brings more great people to befriend.
Do they like the scenery? When more people live in an area, there are more volunteers to preserve nature.
@@JohnFromAccounting ok, but realistically, a lot of these comments are coming from people who don't want more people in their neighbourhood, because of conscious or unconscious bigotry about who those people will be.
This channel is an absolute gem. Every NIMBY argument is 180 degrees backwards.
"allowing more housing is too much government control" -- it's literally the opposite
"allowing more housing is bad for the environment" -- it's literally the opposite
"allowing more housing is unaffordable" -- it's literally the opposite
When you take away all their bs arguments, all you're left with is that they don't like the way apartments or townhouses look, and they don't want to live near people slightly less wealthy than they are. I wish they'd be honest and just say that.
< I wish they'd be honest and just say that.>
Only to be the first to accuse them being racist and classist.
@@shauncameron8390 Nothing wrong with being racist or classist. Humanity has been doing that forever and the only reason we believe it's wrong in the west is cause we have an absurdly high sense of guilt from all the race or class motivated atrocities our ancestors have committed.
If you go to a society that has less guilt (pretty much any country in the middle east, asia, or africa) then you'll likely discover that both racism and classim are the norm. Probably the best examples would be the caste system in India or the way european decedents are treated in south africa or the middle east.
@@beskamir5977bruh
@@guystridsigne2691 Then you must have evidence to the contrary. Evidence which I'm yet to see you share.
Edit: If discrimination against other groups of people was inherently wrong and didn't increase to survivalist of your group, then it wouldn't have been the norm throughout humanity's history.
Historically there was a very high risk that people from a different race/caste/culture/etc had a high chance of getting you sick due to having different illnesses that you were not immune to. Thankfully, that's mostly no longer the case due to how connected our world has become, but the other issue hasn't gone away and likely never will. Some groups are just fundamentally incompatible. Although, granted, this is mostly a cultural divide rather than a race or class divide but since those correlate with culture it is reasonable to discriminate against race or class as a proxy for discriminating against culture.
So instead of trying to force incompatible people to live together, is it not preferable to just segregate? Especially when it's of their own volition. Humans have literally been doing just that for all of human history when forming tribes, towns, cities, nations, etc. Multiculturalism by comparison is a very novel concept and one which only works with mostly compatible cultures (either to begin with or through education/indoctrination/integration/etc) or where there's an overseeing force (police/military/government/etc) that ensures peace between everyone. When those don't exist, you are left with ethnic wars and genocide in a multicultural civilization. So I definitely think it's preferable to separate people geographically when integrating them is not considered possible. And since the people who would bear the consequences of integration or an overseeing power failing are the people who make up a community, then it should logically be entirely up to them to decide who gets to join their group.
@@beskamir5977 Delete your account.
Still pissed at the Long Island Republicans whining about "Local control" when there is literally no level of governance more local than the individual.
Exactly!
And so often those folks just want rules barring their own misconduct removed so they can abuse power locally.
Nothing more hypocrite than ancaps.
They only like big government when they are the big government. Most libertarians just was to be the big fish in their small pond. The rulers of their own little fiefdom.
I don’t know I agree with them I don’t like this trend of states preempting cities even though I agree with the policies of the state. Maybe a compromise could be that states ban single-family zoning for let’s say 10 years after which the law expires and local control is returned.
I’m from northern Virginia. Nothing funnier than seeing “In this house we believe…” signs knowing full well many of those same homeowners wouldn’t allow so much as a duplex in their neighborhood. Some of them will even take out the guesswork for you and just put up and anti-housing sign next to that sign. The cognitive dissonance is truly staggering. “Yes I care about everyone, just as long as the poorer among them can’t ever live in my neighborhood.”
Hear hear. I was thinking over during the "what progressivism gets wrong" segment that the real problem is simply the hypocrisy of so many progressives, who want change so long as it doesn't threaten their personal standing. White saviors aren't gone, they just changed parties.
you just described almost all libs.
@@nairbosfalse, you’ve described wealthy liberals and wealthy conservatives…especially in a place like northern Virginia where they both live the suburban “American dream”
IE, F U got mine.
Isn't that pretty much the average leftist?
It is difficult to make exact projections for the housing market as it is still unclear how quickly or to what degree the Federal Reserve will reduce inflation and borrowing costs without having a substantial negative impact on demand from consumers for anything from houses to cars.
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I never asked to be born
This is such an incredibly concise summary of the entirety of housing discourse. It’s kinda amazing
OTU never misses!
Yeah, that’s pretty much “the everything” on this issue described and explained with perfect clarity.
These people are awesome!
I disagree with their assessment that private housing can help the crisis. It can't because development relies upon demand, and it needs a high level of demand before development is made.
Now, our governments won't build enough housing themselves to keep up with demand either. But it doesn't have to be that way.
That doesn't mean stop development. Density is necessary.
@@dylanc9174 I don't know what you mean. The housing crisis is most acute in high-demand cities like Toronto, New York, Vancouver, and San Francisco.
@@dylanc9174 The market of everything relies of the demand, down to Funkopops! Yet it manages to make plenty of Funkopops (some mgiht say too many). The level of demand the market needs only needs to match the cost of production before it is met, and let me tell you in most places the cost pof production is far exceeeded by the price of housing. Alas more construction is still held bak by land use regulation.
There are few things that anger me more than the "bUt tHe nEiGhBoRhoOd's cHaRaCtEr" argument. Imagine thinking that giving poor people housing is less important than your favorite aesthetic and personal biases. These people need to realize that expecting their neighborhoods to always stay the same no matter what is an unrealistic expectation to have. Time never stops moving forward, therefore, every community is bound to change. You can only either prepare for that change and adapt to it, or delay the inevitable. It is the natural process by which every town and city grows and evolves. Stopping that antithetical to how towns and cities are supposed to grow and evolve. Unless you're a racist and a classist, which they often are, so of course they hate having poor people and people of color moving into their neighborhoods. And besides, "neighborhood character" comes from its unique architecture and culture. Not building types, and certainly not an overwhelming sameness. These people don't even understand what "the character of a neighborhood" really is in the first place.
Not to mention that higher density neighborhoods can be quite pretty anyway. I find it so ironic that many people who are staunchly against higher density and other forms of housing admire European cities for their beauty and design. I've heard people say it's because of architecture, but that alone doesn't make a city.
Can we start calling what the baby boomers have been doing to those after them a "ladder pull"?
It visually describes what they did and are still doing, and springboards off of what all the boomers' kid's know from getting "rug pulled".
Then 5 years later the same people that were against public housing on the empty lot around the corner complain about all the homeless people and drugg addicts camping on the still empty lot and the street in front of it.
Unfortunately one image that lower income housing has is being associated with the housing projects of the 50s and 60s.
I went to Montreal last week, and for various reasons we ended up having to stay in a hotel close to a suburban-style neighborhood called Hampstead. The "street" we were on was the ugliest stroad I have ever seen with ugly strip malls and a literal expressway running through the middle that we needed to use pedestrian walkways to cross over. Hampstead was exactly like any other suburban neighborhood in North America - nice homes, quiet, dull. Zero character or uniqueness. The people who live there (who were extremely lovely, warm people) do their shopping and eating by getting in their cars and driving to the ugly stroad. Compare to the neighborhoods of Mile End and the Plateau which are far more dense, full of renters, and brimming with charm, character, and beauty.
9:53 absolutely horrendous to see elected officials just saying out loud that people have the right to decide whether or not other people are allowed to live near them as though that's not a horrific sentiment,
Exactly. This guy's basically saying instead of having the freedom to choose where you want to live, people should have the freedom to decide which people don't have the freedom to live next to them.
I'm not sure I understand the logic here.
@@andrewreil393 Racism.
Frank Laundry (CZcams) made a feature length, information dense, video on the subject entitled: "The USA Will Never Build Walkable Cities"
This is basically anti-immigrant, but for internal migration within the US.
Yeah, be more specific. Who exactly do you not want to be your neighbor?
I don't want 'those' people in my backyard! 😏😏
The disgust simmering just below the surface of the comment about renters is at the heart of the issue. Property owners just can't handle the idea of someone not in their wealth class living by them, no matter the cost to society and the earth.
Sometimes for the better or worse
This is the whole heart of the issue. Add race to it which it frequently is, even if only inside the heads of the hearers, and you have a regressive movement that's going viral.
I think puttung full price of infrastructure on people living in area quickly do a thing. Everyone who can't afford pay for it will be glad see more people carrying that payment. Even in cost of "neighborhood character"
@@user-ys6vm1yt7v what?
Well, not wealth, but I don't want to leave near drug addicts. Poverty in cities is not an issue as much as addiction, which makes people act as monsters just to pay for their vices.
As a progressive, you have nailed what drives me crazy about many of my fellow progressives: idealism getting in the way of progress.
I think the general labelling of "Progressive" as an ideological label is overly vague and used primarily for tribalism at this point. "Progressives getting in the way of progress" is a contradiction of terms.
Yeah we could really do with more patience sometimes
Agreed. What makes me mad is that lack of patience often results in things moving backward because the idealism is met with backlash. You simply can't get too far in front of the overall culture or the culture will eat you for lunch. @@sashasscribbles
The reason why progressives disagree with each other is that they all want change but they disagree about what change is the right direction, there's 100 different directions you can go but you disagree about which one is actual progress and which one is regression and which one is actually not changing anything substantive. The great advantage of conservatism is that everyone has at least a ballpark understanding of what not changing means. So long as about half of people are happy with their life about how it is you can sell stasis to them pretty readily even if there's one or two things they would change given the option.
@@AlRoderick But even conservatives benefit and rely on the angst and complexities of the progressives. What many conservatives benefit from today were once a progressive idea in the past.
I often have many traditionally conservative and moderate beliefs but I was truly convinced of urbanism after seeing how fiscally irresponsible suburban development is. I’m also quite progressive on the environment so seeing Jason Slaughter on a video informing me how fiscally irresponsible and environmentally unsustainable suburbs were made me strongly urbanist.
Not only is suburban development fiscally irresponsible, it's also environmentally irresponsible. So much land is being leveled just to build single-family homes that are already unaffordable, coupled with the larger carbon footprint that suburban residents emit, because they use their cars to get everywhere.
It’s irresponsible in basically every way, including socially as well. Suburbs overall can be just as dangerous as urban environments, but they’re also further from any law enforcement that could help. They spread out public resources and emergency services across a greater area, which can be a big problem when an emergency becomes a life threatening matter in mere minutes. Ambulances shouldn’t be made into hearses just because some people wanted a massive area to be zoned for low density housing, and law enforcement is dependent on quickly responding to crime, so when response times fall as a result, it opens the door to more crime being committed.
@@strangelyukrainian7314 Yep. So far my friends and I have been cat-called in "nice" "quiet" small towns, and in supposedly idyllic suburbs, but not in the city.
@@EvilStevilTheKenevilPEN15
I mean, that’s not really one of the emergencies, but I suppose some people feel more secure in being rude or disrespectful if they feel like there’s less chance someone nearby will do anything about it, so that’s another thing I suppose, but the flip side of that is that people in the cities also are much less likely to help anyone because of the bystander effect anyways.
So glad you made a video about this. Urbanism is truly something anyone can get behind no matter political views!
Yet not just biked tried to make it seem so in his Toronto video even though his points were on key especially the crackhead mayor
At max the front lawn
The concern really isn't different political views, it's people's material interests (like homeowners who want to keep their property values ticking up).
Basically this. I'm very much a libertarian so to me seeing the absurd laws and how much power governments in canada, the usa and my home country have with regards to housing and urbanism is almost 1984-esque
Sadly also something that anyone can get in front of, it seems!
I have to say, I totally prefer multi-unit buildings. I've lived in duplexes, high-rise and medium apartment buildings, and single family urban and suburban homes. I even owned a house once! Mowing the lawn, painting the house, fixing the plumbing - who needs it? I so prefer living in medium-sized apartments. In a city. Without a car. I guess I'm a bit weird. . . 🚲
I've done a bit of a spread and the sort of duplex-triplex range with roof access and the possibility to grow your own vegetable garden seems the sweet spot to me. Much taller and your life starts to become defined by hallways, usually dark, and or elevators, and staircases that aren't designed as part of the space but really just indoor fire escapes, as they are treated as secondary to the elevator.
it's not enough to have this zoning laws removed but also bringing & valuing fathers, both in the home & in the community , which in turn makes safe neighborhoods due to the enforcement of good moral values, leading to lowering the high crime rates over the past few years.
I grew up in an urban environment I cannot stand it
Your just trapped in a cell. Can't have friends over for BBQ because you have no garden.
Can't even relax you can always here voices of strangers.
It's horrific.
That's what terrifies me about the future. It's feels like they want to force us out of the countryside and into urban hell holes.
@@jirehla-ab1671 Quit copy/pasting this BS all over the comments section.
@@avancalledrupert5130 You didn't live in an urban environment at all then, as what you are describing is suburbia, not urbanism.
Glad to see conservative YIMBYism getting some recognition on CZcams. Highly recommend anyone interesting in a conservative YIMBY perspective read the article “Why Sprawl is a Conservative Issue” by Michael Lewyn.
(Btw, that Arizona democrat shown in the video was arguing against a bill proposed by republicans!)
Strong Towns also falls into the conservative sphere, iirc. They're great.
yes, less sprawl means less urbanites settling into agricultural areas, which means less looming threat of ordinances that muck up my operation. City people hate chickens and farm smell like you wouldn't believe, man. I want to conserve our greenspaces as much as possible and that isn't feasible if sprawl keeps sinking its claws into every green bit on the map. You know how many of my farming friends have gotten insane offers to sell some acreage (especially meadows and wild land, not just monoculture fields) in order to build single family communities? It's gross. Because of the low payment and strict govt contracts they abide by it's hard for them to say no to those money bags.
Property owner and libertarian here. You nailed the libertarian section.
People got to know the constitution restrictions all forms of government from making certain laws.
A state or province restricting cities from taking away freedoms increases freedom overall.
This is maybe the most useful and concise YIMBY video out there. Many people with a negative gut reaction to change attempt to justify it through their own political lens. This video singlehandedly knocks these ideas back to their self-serving exclusionary realities. Excellent work!
First rule of Edmonton is no one says anything positive about Edmonton to keep these prices affordable. ooo it's bad you wouldn't want to live here, uh moose attacks are rampant, the tim Hortons are haunted... But for real, we would be happy to have anyone here that is looking for a more affordable option in Canada. The vast tracts of old SFH offers so much potential with new zoning reforms and transit options currently being built out.
Great video! It's a common theme in urbanism circle that one spectrum is immune to NIMBYism when they can be the worst. There are absolutely common goals for everyone behind promoting strong dense urban areas, we just need to learn to speak he right language to speak to them.
Edmonton is easily one of the most exciting cities in Canada for housing reform!
As another commenter noted, it's strange seeing those multicolor "In this house we believe..." signs right next to signs saying "Protect our neighborhood's character!" Both convenient euphemisms, taken together- "I want change, as long as I stay on top."
@@SoybeanAK "I want change, but somewhere else"
NIMBYs tend to think their entire area is made of nothing but slippery slopes!
I consider myself to have libertarian values, although not a libertarian. I find it funny some libertarians think its okay to mandate parking to give freedom to drivers.
Which I find funny. I thought Libertarian was about freedom and let people do what they want as long it does not impede the rights of another individual.
I think these people are just LINOs (Libertarians In Name Only) and are people who would probably just vote Republican (US) or Conservatives (CN/GB) or Liberal (AU). Any real Libertarian understands that his home is his castle and would have read at least 1 page of the Magna Carta in their lifetime but these days too many Libertarians undertake the "Do as I say, Not as I do" lifestyle, especially after John McAfee was Killed (officially it was a suicide) by the US Government in a Spannish Prison awaiting extradition over refusing to pay taxes (which counts as theft and is supossedly illegal under the US constitution if the passage of the 13th amendment is believed to be legitimate)...
@@glaframb This is why it's the ideology of a child.
Yeah exactly, no should mandate anything, thats the whole point of libertarianism lol
@@wclifton968gameplaystutorialsOn spot there, these folks aren't really libertarians
That was a great video, really shows the mental blocks that keep different people from embracing healthy urbanism. I've seen pretty much all these arguments and the traps people fall into, it's very frustrating.
While insulting those with other political beliefs drives clicks for creators, the big goal should be to persuade to them why we both want better cities and why they should join our side, not make them stray further away from us. So I'm glad you did this to show the similarities between the different beliefs. Now more than ever before shows how important it is to unify than division and violence. Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. Higher density, mixed-use, transit-oriented development is something that should not be confined to any side of the political spectrum. It literally has points that everyone gets behind.
If you gave everyone in Manhattan a house on one acre of land you would be at the size of Delaware. So yes, dense cities are very much environmentally friendly! Those who don't like cities nor environmentalists think it's a "gotcha" if environmentalists live in cities, and yet as you brought up, the carbon footprint is much lower in cities! 10001, a Midtown Manhattan zip code, has a total household carbon footprint per year of 28.8. While 11764, a Suffolk County, Long Island zip code, has a total household carbon footprint per year of 68.5! Density of urban land use saves space for nature & biodiversity!
Hello again
We're living in a time of great change, and a good third of the population has (at best) a serious case of 'Old World Blues' (or, to put it succinctly, moving forward while walking backward). Many of these folks don't like the fact that WASP supremacy is dying and are more than willing to do anything to crush this change, even if it means working with men like Putin.
"While insulting those with other political beliefs..."
Then go drill this through the skulls of conservatives who insult someone just for being a Communist or a Marxist or a Socialist or a Green Party member or an Anarchist or an Animal Rights Vegan like myself who wants to outlaw the meat industry or JustStopOil activists/politicians.
@@theultimatereductionist7592
They earned their insults. They're just aspiring autocrats masquerading as humanitarians like their idols. Their delusions of grandeur are far greater than their professed compassion and concern for humanity.
This is a very important video. Whatever our political differences, there is no reason for us to be divided on housing reform. It's literally better for everyone. It's just a matter of looking at things logically instead of emotionally.
exactly, housing and better city planning is not a right or left wing thing. Its so insane to even try to frame the advocacy as that at all. But I know many Urban planning channels love to make it out to be like that.
The most libertarian party in Germany (FDP) is also the party which calls the loudest for government subsidies for cars and preserving minimum parking requirements. Preaching the free market when it comes to regulating companies but expecting the government to subsidize gas prices for SUVs
Libertarians are inherently hypocrites
it's not enough to have this zoning laws removed but also bringing & valuing fathers, both in the home & in the community , which in turn makes safe neighborhoods due to the enforcement of good moral values, leading to lowering the high crime rates over the past few years.
Actual libertarianism and "home rule"/local-government-rights types are two very different things, though they tend to end up under the same tent. The former is an honest political stance; the latter usually just want to allow their municipal governments to freely discriminate against various groups without oversight from higher governing/regulatory bodies designed to prevent that sort of thing.
Either communicate reductionistically in terms of mathematically quantifiable physical choices/actions or else anything goes.
they're the same thing, the former is just a smokescreen the elite present to you to make you think you have a choice
Yet another excellent video and breakdown. Seriously love how approachable these videos are for people who are new to Urbanism, but also still so valuable for people in the Urbanist circles.
There's a group in Lake Forest Park (north of Seattle) who are trying to stop light rail through LFP to Kenmore, Kirkland, Bothell, and Woodinville.
Rich, older, elite, waterfront NIMBY trying to stop the rest of us from having affordable transit
They're probably afraid of criiiiiime. The lamest excuse in the book. Maybe you can suggest to the metropolitan transit board to not put any light rail stops in Lake Forest Park out of spite, while pretending they're heeding the LFPers demands.
@@edwardmiessner6502 Crime is scary, and a genuine problem.
oh shit i used to live in bothell, it was a car dependant hell hole in my eyes back then (although i didnt realize it at the time) a light rail connection would have been nice. and now im in texas and its even worse here 😭😭
4:14 “its noisy… strangers… school issues” like wtf
This man is not used to going outside and seeing real people live their lives. Of course there’s gonna be strangers like what???
And what are "school issues"? Like, existence of schools?
@@pacerdanny buddy doesn't want to slow down for a school zone probably.
It makes a lot more sense if you take for granted (like many of these people do) that poor people are disruptive (=> noisy) and threatening (=> strangers are bad) as adults, and unruly and stupid (=> school issues) as children.
Terrified that an urban area of 5 million people is becoming... a city! The horror!
@@ThatsANovaThanks for breaking it down for the people that don't know coded language. We need more people like you in the world. ❤
The people in my city: "We don't want low income housing." Also my city when they built luxury apartments that are 2000 dollars a month: no one here can afford that. No sh*t and the expensive apartments are probably more empty because the landlord doesn't want to lower the price.
Because the landlord is not in the business of renting at a loss.
Luxury apartments ease tension on other modes of housing. Not all apartments should be luxury apartments, but they can make a positive impact if used correctly.
@@JohnFromAccounting The problem is, thats all that gets built though. You dont have basic apartments, you have cheaply built luxury apartments going up everywhere.
What they mean by 'We dont want low income housing" is, they dont want drug dealers, drug addicts, people with violent criminal backgrounds or a laundry list of criminal charges moving in next door, down the street, a few streets over or in areas where they frequent that are nice and quiet. They dont want the dregs of society to be regular locals in their area.
They arent not talking about the poeple(of all races) who have solid jobs that pay well, but dont allow for the individual to pay 1500-2500 a month to live in a place or even afford a modest sized home. They just dont want people from the hood or really rough areas of town to become locals where they live.
@@joshuakhaos4451are you a NIMBY?
People really need to know more about this stuff to not have these misconceptions. Some of them are just ridiculous
I want little "villages" of mixed commercial and residential places where you can walk to everything you need.
I live in Brussels, a typical European city. I've got rid of my car because I can get anywhere in the city without it and I use car sharing for certain trips or buying in bulk at the supermarket. The American zoning system is incredibly wasteful in space and infrastructure and condems you to have two or even three cars.
interesting, since Belgium is known to be one of the most car-centric places in all of Europe.
If so, that's changing. Fast. Belgium has the densest railroad network of the world and low emmision zones has forced city dwellers to either sell their cars or buy an expensive new one. I decided for the former four years ago and it works fine (I now use car sharing companies whenever I need a car), it's a lot cheaper but you need to organize your trips or outings differently. Once you're used to it, it's no big deal. I re-purposed my garage as a fitness place and may eventually buy a small car just to learn my kids (4) how to drive but they didn't Care for this (so far).
@@ianhomerpura8937 "Car centric" is like the term "big portion", have different meaning in US and Europe :D
This video was needed so much! My community/social circle is primarily conservative/libertarian and most urbanism content doesn't target them with appealing arguments from their perspective.
It's ridiculous too because the case is the most straightforward from that angle.
Modern suburbia is the newfangled experiment that's being lavishly subsidized, is fiscally disastrous, alienates people from their neighbours (because you drive right past most of them) and overrides liberty in favour of central mandates that distort the market.
No nation, least of all America, was built on this model.
There's a LOT of townhouses in Edmonton from what I've seen, and more developments seem to pop up all the time. I'm hoping changes to the city zoning rules makes for easier infill and even more reasonably dense developments popping up in the urban core.
Yeah, I noticed that Edmonton’s really investing in improving their downtown. I’m all here for it
What rules does Edmonton have that promote townhouses? I'm curious what Toronto and Vancouver can learn from Edmonton.
@@Amir-jn5mo Edmonton recently abolished R1 zoning and parking minimums.
Those are the two biggest drivers of urban sprawl.
@@jamesphillips2285 i heard about the parking minimums but wow R1 zoning too!!? What is the next zoning tier?
@@Amir-jn5mo The new bylaws going in are trying to simplify zoning, let more infill happen easier, make development approvals easier, things like that. There's a bunch of stuff up on the city website.
First time house or apartment buyers also free up capacity in the rental market. So even if new houses are only slightly cheaper than other houses, and only upper-middle class can buy these houses, in the end people with low income still profit from it. There can be a whole cascading effect when one family buying a new house may lead several families to move to a slightly better home.
I love that your "traditional" city already looks car centric. As a european I had trouble differentiating for the 1st 2 ones 😆
As a european you are very stupid and cannot understand the purpose of the comparison 😆 it was to compare the diversity of uses, sizes, and styles of buildings mixed together in the traditional picture compared to the uniformity of use, size, and style of the buildings in the modern picture 😂
It's true, even Toronto and Montreal cursed by car-centrism, but it is not that bad, and there are many fascinating places. And generally, politics and society changing to right direction.
You guys are awesome, my favorite thing is that you do not fall into the trap of other urbanists of
1. Being overly combative; though these issues are serious and time sensitive, being combative to emotional "anti-urbanists" is not productive most of the time
2. Saying that government intervention is always the answer; the market can solve a lot when actors in it have the right priorities, and often government is a huge part of the problem
3. Having an overly doom and gloom attitude. In North America it will probably take generations to get our cities back to what they should be, but while populations are still growing in many cities, we still have a chance to affect real change.
I don't know how you can MAKE this video without exploding, when just watching it raises my blood pressure. The sheer stubbornness and stupidity, and zero-sum personality types that treat life on this earth like a war.
It should be prohibited for people to oppose against new builds and affordable housing and saying (6:19): “oh no I’m not against affordable housing at all, but there are better places that would probably be a little bit better”. That is not a reason to oppose, that’s a fallacy. That woman is shameless in her response, and sadly she counts as an example for many. Neighborhoods thrive with mixed income housing, retail, schools, parks, libraries etc. that’s indispensable for social cohesion in a neighborhood.
I absolutely love the energy here! I think urbanism channels too often get caught up in preaching to the choir and denigrate and alienate the conservative/republican voters we need to sway. There is nothing inherently anticonservative or antilibertarian about urbanism. When other channels I love, like Not Just Bikes, Climate Town, the Arm Chair Urbanist or City Nerd add in anti Republican asides, I can't help but think about how, while that may drive clicks, it defeats our end goal.
I was hooked in already but don’t like being told I’m horrible to other people when I’m just doing my thing helping the economy… dun dun du-! Sorry also I feel like houses under 1000 sq ft need to be more availably considered
Plus, even for me as a progressive, I actually agree strongly with the libertarian YIMBY arguments. I think there is definitely something to be said about government overreach into our private lives, be that regarding our sex lives and sexuality or the physical domicile in which we live. That's just not a place government should be getting involved!
And they can be won over through a wise use argument - that property owners usually are wiser on how their property is to be developed than are local city and county bureaucrats. The only exception is that I would not want a high intensity or polluting commercial property or industry within a residential neighborhood of any density. Mom and pop stores, professional offices, and quiet, clean small scale industry are ok.
Adam Something is by far the most annoying example. He constantly adds these snarky anti-conservative strawman remarks into his arguments that make anyone who lives in suburbia look like a bad person, which isn't surprising because he literally made a video explaining why conservative are inherently more stupid and bigoted than progressives.
I mean considering how cartoonishly awful a good number of the GOP have been in their constant need to "own the libs" and how it just makes the government completely dysfunctional and hurts our more vulnerable citizens, I don't blame them.
Some people like inequality because it makes them feel good to make others suffer.
The struggle to find and maintain consistent housing has completely drained my savings in the years since I've moved out on my own, even with roommates. The most ridiculous situation I've encountered was signing a 12 month lease, and being asked 3 months in if we could move out early. The landlord offered us $1000 to move, not even knowing that we had local regulations that would have forced him to pay us 3x that. When we told him this, he let us stay until we found new housing a few months later.
I wish we had rent to own housing in the US. I hear about it from friends around the world (namely Finland) and it sounds so appealing as a way to heal our rent-starved generations.
A certain town condemned a new building because they said it had too many sinks. Then they went on a war against game rooms and home office spaces, which they said were a scourge that needed to be stopped. IN A TECH TOWN. They also said they wanted to encourage people to have local flora on their property, then fined the hell out of people for doing that instead of having the worst kind of grass you can possibly use for lawns in terms of how much extra care and water and fertilizer it needs to survive at that neon green color.
The game rooms and offices thing as well as the sink war were directly aimed at housing. The fear was more people might be able to live in a given house. which is a thing they did not want to allow. Because we all must live apart in the most expensive condominium we can. One per person. Who each has two cars. These were Democrats.
I used to live in an extremely “progressive” city where it was practically impossible to build any new buildings that were more than a few stories tall, so any new housing or offices became sprawl.
I’m in Florida and over the last 15 years or so lot sizes on single family homes have gotten smaller and smaller. This is creating higher density housing already. Not everyone wants to live in stacked multi level housing.
Great summary.
And you added one of the best/worse excuses by NIMBYS. It's the "I'm not against affordable housing, it's just not right for this neighbourhood/district/city etc." They use this excuse so often, it may as well be a meme at this point.
they have a point in agricultural areas but that's it. I wouldn't want an apartment building near my lot because I've got livestock and free ranging chickens, it just wouldn't mesh. I'm not opposed because "ew icky rentcucks, stay back!" Like wow, more tax revenue being brought in but it takes up much less space and costs less in infrastructure upkeep/additions, what a bad thing! Doesn't make sense to me.
Its simply to keep property value high artificially.
More supply = price lowered
Nix supply and price maintains its value
Its really just that simple.
thanks to boomers for treating houses as retirement funds! I'll sell my home at a similar price that I bought it adjusted for inflation and improvements, hopefully to a new family or couple looking to settle for a long time. It's a used house, I'm not looking to bank off of it, I've been farting up the thing for too long to rationalize wanting profit lmao.
The best part about NIMBY argument, is that the "poor who can't afford to live here" are now by-in-large their own kids, due to student debt, housing crisis, interest crisis, and 6-year degrees becoming mandatory for so much as teaching Kindergarten. They can stall all they want, but this impending crisis will hit hard in 20-30 years. This isn't a partisan issue... this is purely a generational one... at least in the US. Case in point: 24 states are run by Democrats... so are 64 of the 100 largest cities... and does anyone do anything? Nope. Same old bs, just a different logic for why we "just can't have pedestrian friendly cities"... and everything they "try" to do, costs 10x more than it should, so then they use the "we would, but it's too expensive without federal aid" excuse. Can someone explain how it costs $1,000,000 to put a mile of sidewalk in?... you've got like, $50k of material, and a crew of 10 people... it's absurd... it's all lawsuits... it's all a game.
Thank you for your levelheaded and no-nonsense arguments. These arguments really are what changed my mind about how housing should be regulated. Thanks!
4:47 lol, calling single family homes the "spine of a city"
I also wear my spine on my fingertips!
That was such a awful statement lol.
I like that you argued for housing from various political perspectives. Solid work 👍🏾
When I lived in America I thought America was uber NIMBY.
Then I moved back to the Netherlands as an adult and hol-e-crap are we the biggest NIMBYs to have ever NIMBY'd. All of these arguments you have presented here are exponentially worse here.
I live in a high-density area of Istanbul. I love it. Everything I need is within a five-minute walk.
Braggart! But good on you, just the same.
The soundbites of people arguing their respective positions (and making a fool out of themselves) was really good
As a Catholic and a lover of quaintness I see this video as an absolute win. If I had a true fortress for a home I wouldn’t be living anywhere near the middle of my town in the first place.
This is so excellent a video that shows whenever denser housing in single family neighborhoods is proposed or just suggested, even two- and three-families, the NIMBYs across the political spectrum from progressive through liberal, libertarian, and old school conservative all the way to authoritarian conservative line up to oppose any change to their neighborhoods altogether.
it's how we lost the REM de L'Est.
This really seems so concise and clear, and it addresses several viewpoints. Thank you deeply for this video.
Thank you both for doing the work
really good summary and breakdown of arguments i hear all the time!
The "right to have a say over who your neighbours are" is the most bonkers statement I've ever heard. Yeah, you don't have a right to control who lives next door to you. Thinking you do is the batshit crazy thing I've ever heard.
as someone who lives in a sundown town you've got it in one. The Old Order pennsy germans will let feral dogs loose if there's a minority family touring a property (I remember one morning I was out playing pokemon go and a cop pulled up next to me and advised me to get to higher ground because the dogs had been set loose, bonkers shit) or suddenly everyone wants to go for a walk while open carrying. I swear, half of them only own a confederate flag just in case they see an Indian family looking at a house here. Come vets day they fly our *NORTHERN/UNION* regiment cavalry's flag. There's nothing on the books keeping anyone from moving in, but it's like a social contract exists here that you don't sell to anyone who isn't white or you scare the shit out of them so they won't want to buy.
@@appalachiabrauchfrau no wonder why they did everything to stop new developments in Middletown, around the new SEPTA station in Wawa.
True, it's often meant as "I want to keep those gross different people out" but don't pretend we all don't want at least some level of say as to what gets built next door since it will ultimately have some affect on your ability to enjoy your home.
I wouldn't want a pig farm to spring up nearby for example. Or a 24hr bagpipe repair shop. Or a strip club. Etc etc. It's a sliding scale that's hard to define the point where it's reasonable you have a say or not. Even something like increased foot traffic will have some affect. Noise is a big one that's hard to solve without building things much better than typical.
I bought in a distant suburb because it was close to my work. My workplace changed and the location is no longer practical, but I can't afford any property that would be practically close to where I am. So equity > proximity but quality of life is definitely worse now. And seriously... LMAO single family homes are doomed!?! Self styled real estate experts trying to predict what will make a property more valuable is also quite amusing, yet they still keep from new quality housing from being built.
No one can predict the future but there must be a reason why the land values in the most densely populated neighbourhoods near the centre of large cities continue to increase more than they do in the suburbs.
I think it’s mostly about lifestyle. Some of us like to be able to walk to the stores and restaurants and to have entertainment and recreation at our doorsteps. We don’t want the bother of owning a car. We’re not interested in owning a single family home that needs a lot of maintenance. We’d rather spend time doing other things.
Many of us, including property owners, worry about the neighbourhood becoming unaffordable to young people starting families and therefore becoming less diverse. We don’t want to see local businesses having to close when their rents go up. Equity is meaningless if you plan to stay put.
I’m supportive of more density so those in your situation can move closer to work but not of single family homes. My neighbourhood full of multiplexes with many units large enough for families is quite liveable and there’s still room for more.
@@polishthedayit's not enough to have this zoning laws removed but also bringing & valuing fathers, both in the home & in the community , which in turn makes safe neighborhoods due to the enforcement of good moral values, leading to lowering the high crime rates over the past few years.
This is a useful video. Yall should make more videos addressing the basic practical concerns people have with housing law changes.
I am so glad at how you started this video. I'm so sick of the clickbait bullshit all over the internet. You said what the problem was mentioned it was bipartisan and proposed to introduce the solutions that have been suppositioned; then analyze them coming from different spectrums of political belief. So not only could somebody who's a conservative or progressive maybe understand a libertarian standpoint but vice versa. Kudos to you for not just plastering it with "you won't believe what they're about to do! Hurry up and watch this video before CZcams makes me take it down!" We need more of you in this world.❤
Gosh why are all these poors starting to live around me hold up let me get daddy government to push them out.
"but i thought you hated your dad?"
"I do, but we can't have these gangsters and hooligans around killing my property value"
"um, what? where are you even getting that? Also, aren't your property taxes calculated on your property value?"
I haven't made it very far in the video yet, but my only argument against this massive wave of multi-family apartment development we are seeing is we are creating a huge supply of rental properties allowing the developers to profit off of renters forever instead of creating large communities of multi-family condos where lower income families could enter the world of homeownership.
That also opens up big questions about how HOAs are run but that's a separate conversation.
Come to Canada where the main complaint is the opposite, that too many new developments are condos instead of purpose-built rentals!
This is why some people advocate that the government step in and build new public housing developments, like what Japan, Singapore and Austria did.
@@OhTheUrbanity from an american pov, i'm so curious on what that's all about. why are these condos considered a bad thing in canada? isn't owning the place u plan to settle down in a good thing instead of having to worry about constant rent increases?
@@OhTheUrbanity
Because due to zoning restrictions, those are the only high-density housing legally allowed to be built coupled with high real estate and building costs.
Perfect summary of some the issues we are facing when it comes to building affordable housing!
I’ll definitely add this to my repertoire essential urbanist content 😁
The conservative case for denser housing is based on property rights. A person should be allowed to build as they please on the property they own, and limits should be based on harmful activity, and not on catering to special interests.
They are not environmentalists, they are conservationists. There are lots of Greenfield sites that are less biodiverse than a lot of Brownfield sites.
Interesting that here in the Asia-Pacific, it's heritage conservationist groups pushing for urbanist policies like pedestrianization and transit expansions.
the fundamental question, is "why" why are there "greenfield sites" less bio diverse than whatever else? Part of it is how those places are structured. They aren't wild. Brownfield sites have the opportunity to grow diversity organically, whereas myopic views of "maintaining" whatever lead to practices that steamroll out the natural variation in a given area. They could become wild. But nobody lets them.
@@weatheranddarkness This is why the same people are against High Speed Rail and Nuclear Energy. Or any 'legacy' infrastructure megaproject. They are why nothing gets done.
@@taipizzalord4463
Being against nuclear energy is justified.
@@ianhomerpura8937it's not enough to have this zoning laws removed but also bringing & valuing fathers, both in the home & in the community , which in turn makes safe neighborhoods due to the enforcement of good moral values, leading to lowering the high crime rates over the past few years.
I love living in a city apartment, but the suburban apartment is noisier (paper thin walls and floors, too many nascar wanabees) and not walkable, or bikeable. You need to add all those things that cities have at the same time or before you add density. If you do it right then most people won't complain.
Excellent video. Your content really stands out for the depth of research and even-handedness.
Another amazing video. Thank you both!
4:40 i know this is supposed to be a video that shows how everyone can be in favor of good urbanism, but god this is so ironic considering that the soviet union literally gave people apartments for free
I know!
But the economy suffered in the long run. People got free apartments but no running water, sewage or consistent electricity.
@@shauncameron8390it's just a false statement. Soviet houses have all the amenities, even the central heating. The problem with this system was that for getting a apartment you should work for employer that actually builds houses themselves. So if you work for Research institute or tractor factory you could potentially after 10-20 years in queue get your apartment. But if you sell milk on market or work in shoe repair shop you will get nothing. So it's not ideal, but from my European perspective much better than current state in big us cities
Top notch work.
Outstanding video! This is an incredibly useful way to present the different positives and negatives from the various political positions. Thank you for this.
Well done. Thanks!
Im always baffled by the counter offense from NIMBYs about anything but large single homes and any density is socialism and/or communism.
Yo, chill. Not everything you disagree with or not sure is necessarily socialist or communist.
Most of them grew up during the 1950s, at the height of McCarthyist propaganda. Everything and everyone they don't like is "communist" to them.
London has had rowhouses and middle-high density housing for centuries, and yet has never been socialist or communist. Curious.
Absolutely wonderful video. I often can't help but feel under represented as a mostly libertarian leaning person when it comes to things like urban development. I love, not just the idea of a city, but the short times I've been able to live in a partially walkable space. At the end of the day, all of my own gripes with the idea of a dense city just come down to property ownership in a dense area since I'd like to have full property rights in my own private dwelling instead of being screwed with by a bad landlord, having my paycheck leeched at by the same or the easily monopolized housing market jacking up prices artificially.
We'll make it to a better future eventually. For ruralites, suburbanites AND urbanites.
4:01 it’s ironic because the San Francisco city council vehemently opposes the construction of new houses. Equating market rate units to Fascism, I wish I was joking.
You all are amazing!
"Seeing green things" environmentalism is really common in Southern California, along with "we can't allow more people because we have to conserve water."
while still having huge front and back lawns. such hypocrisy
@@ianhomerpura8937 Not to mention golf courses!
"...the private sector is incapable of serving people..."
They are absolutely capable, but they are far from willing if it doesn't benefit them in the form of greater profits. The private sector does what is good for the private sector only. Also, the problem with local control is that the NIMBY's make up the councils many cities. Power needs to be more diffuse in the local area and give the poor a larger voice, since they are the majority of the population than the NIMBY's. Those NIMBY's are often the "I got mine" types, so they no longer want to maintain the programs that helped them because it no longer benefits them.
"technically" capable, but due to the strictures of capitalism, practically incapable. They haven't the will because they exist only to serve the profit margins they projected at the beginning of a project, and that, only to serve their own interests, as you said.
Indeed Society will never get better as long as profit needs to motivate change, as housing homeless individuals, providing effective mental health/substance use healthcare, and treating workers with dignity isn't often profitable.
@@weatheranddarkness
And rightfully so. The private sector is not a charity and they're not interested in doing anything at a loss.
@@shauncameron8390 That doesn't mean the private sector is right to do what they do. Something as vital has housing should never be a means for making a profit. Housing is a social asset and should be treated as such. The simple act of giving people housing reduces crime and drug dependency. It costs less than is spent on police to chase away the homeless and deal with the crimes committed by the homeless. Guaranteeing housing to the homeless and people who are housing burdened saves us all money, period.
@@greevar
Then where does the money come from to come up with the materials, machinery, labor, etc to build the housing?
Maybe your best segment yet.🙂🙂💯💯❤️❤️
Very good video. Agree with most of your conclusions. One thing I think you could add on the progressive section is the idea that new homes = “gentrification” that exists in many urban activist circles
We need denser housing, but we also need better housing. Part of the hatred for apartment complexes in America comes from how poorly they are built with, for instance, paper thin walls that let through every noise. Apartment buildings in older cities often don’t have this problem as much because they had brick or concrete between apartments. Not to mention the absolute nightmare of landlords.
Which is interesting. Materials like laminated veneer lumber and foam insulations are simply too thin and flammable to be used for apartments, but they’re present in a lot of new developments nowadays, especially the controversial five-over-ones. This also means noise is heard through walls, and no one wants to hear your neighbors screaming and groaning while doing their thing. No wonder why people hate them so much.
However, some commenters say that materials like brick and concrete are too expensive. Why is that the case though?
@@ianhomerpura8937 just because it’s a lot heavier i suppose. Costs more to transport, and also requires more specialized labor to build with. But if we want livable places it shouldn’t be an excuse anymore. Subsidize it if we have to. We know how damaging noise is to mental health.
it's not enough to have this zoning laws removed but also bringing & valuing fathers, both in the home & in the community , which in turn makes safe neighborhoods due to the enforcement of good moral values, leading to lowering the high crime rates over the past few years.
The noise, the lack of space, the inability to own your own place. All three are the main reasons behind the dislike for apartments and the first 2 are completely solvable. And the third needs a new system, or a jury rigged old system to make the entire thing attractive to those who can't stand the idea of renting. Since it's a constant leech on a paycheck.
@@calvenknox8552 sure even if we solve this its also important that we also provide father like figures / father mentorship programs in single parent fatherless hones in maintaining both the enforcement of moral values of children / safe neiborhoods in a macro level.
Being Successful isn't just determined by having a good paycheck, and materialistic needs but also moral development needs too.
1:00 there's no way this Greek statue avatar is an environmentalist.
Honestly, it being Michelangelo's David, this person is probably worse than just "not an environmentalist". I'd bet a burger and a beer this person's primary online habits are the fomenting of fascism, and trolling.
Amazing. Good to see how we are all wrong and how to fix it
The only things I don't want near where I live are chat piles, open pit mines, and manufacturing.
Great channel.
You forgot a major one for conservatives and libertarians. All suburbs and their infrastructure have to be subsidized by some aka other tax payers. Suburbs are a redistribution of wealth. Every minimum lot size adds to the tax base required because distance is that key factors that adds cost to all infrastructure.
Wonderful video. Thank you.
Thanks!
4:00 "[Poor people] can go live in Prince William County"??? Bruh how detached do you have to be from reality to think that Prince William County is "affordable" by any stretch of the word?
I prefer higher density any day but I also do wish we’d focus more on building materials. Be like Asian countries where apartments are made of concrete and you don’t hear everything your neighbors do
Concrete has an environmental impact and so isn’t necessarily a good solution. Nor do all of us try to avoid city noise.
As a long time urban dweller, I’m accustomed to city sounds. I like some of it - the kids playing in the nearby schoolyard, dogs enjoying themselves at the unofficial dog park across the street, conversations of people walking by, fog horns and train whistles, church bells, the excited chirping of birds.
I deliberately chose to live in a dense neighbourhood of multiplexes with little setback between my dwelling and the sidewalk because I like feeling part of that urban fabric.
I don’t care for the noise or smell of traffic though and am looking forward to the day all vehicles will be electric though I’m hoping that higher density and more public transit will reduce the number of vehicles overall.
Yeah, I think that's one area where a lot urbanists miss the mark. There are a ton of benefits to higher density, but I go crazy when I can't go back to somewhere quiet at the end of the day. You can hear EVERYTHING in my current apartment.
There is also one major reason why we across the Asia-Pacific prefer concrete for our houses and apartments: typhoons and those strong winds they bring with them all year round.
@@ianhomerpura8937 That’s interesting. In the past what we built was more suited to the surrounding geography and climate.
Many of the buildings where I live are three to four storeys and are made of a combination of concrete (for the foundation) and brick on the exterior and wood/plaster/drywall on the interior. Some of the oldest structures are made of stone. High rise apartments are restricted to ten storeys in most neighbourhoods. Those taller than that, almost all constructed of steel and concrete, are downtown although there are a few clusters of high rises in other parts of the city. Those high rise clusters outside of downtown are mostly areas without good transit and there’s not much shopping nearby so they attract those who are OK with driving everywhere.
Our main weather challenges are snowstorms although recently the rain has been heavier flooding low-lying areas and basements when storm drains can’t handle the volume. I’ve had a bit of water in my basement a couple of times which is more annoying than a problem because I’m the only one in our triplex with a basement and we’ve designated it as our tornado shelter.
Tornadoes have become more frequent in our area lately and the last place you want to be when you get a tornado warning like we did a couple of weeks ago is an upper floor.
We get the occasional windstorm. Sometimes they’re remnants of a hurricane from the southern U.S., in their dying stage by the time they hit our part of Canada so fallen tree branches can be a problem, particularly because we have a lot of large old trees on our street. Our brick building has withstood one hundred years of whatever nature throws a it but if the tree outside was blown over by a tornado it could cause a lot of damage.
@@expressNoise That is a uniquely American problem. We have very low standards for what we use as building materials and wall thicknesses in the name of improved margins. Go to many other modern 1st world country apartments and you'll find that your neighbor could through a total rager without you even noticing until you put your ear to the wall
You earned a subscriber, excellent video.
This is probably the best video on this topic that I’ve ever seen.
There are rental properties in my neighborhood. A few observations, it's drastically up to the quality of the tenant on how well taken care of it is. There are many times where the rental property is not the worse one in it. Another big one is that it does hurt but not ruin the value of the houses, but only to a point. My neighborhood was first started in the late 19th century when the farmer sold a chunk and a second house was built. A century later there are condos, townhouses, a 1000 unit apartment complex, a national forest and shopping center on the land. It would be an ideal place if not for traffic.
With that said, people are giving up security for liberty. Franklin was not exactly wrong with his warning just inaccurate.
You can't really blame tenants for the condition of the rentals they're in; the problem is absentee landlords. The house I rent looks like hell because it needs painting, but I can't paint it because it's not mine.
@@MrBirdnose there are those cases as well and I have no idea the makeup.
"If you live in this very dense city with most amenities within walking distance, you are not an environmentalist! Learn it from me, a true planet-loving suburban dweller, living in my acre of grass that I have to water every day with gallons and gallons of water and 3 cars parked on my huge driveway so that I can go to work and get groceries 5 miles away driving on pavement that overheats the whole neighborhood on a regular summer day." 🤪🤡
Urban infill is based
I'm always impressed by all the research and work you put into your videos. I love that you guys are on our side!
Best video on urbanization politics I've seen
Very fair and informative assessment of all discussed perspectives. Liked and subscribed.