tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post338844411114248711..comments2023-11-05T06:18:25.377-06:00Comments on The Privatopia Papers: The Golden State’s War on Itself | Newgeography.comEvan McKenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04479661304143631524noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-8520474683537162962010-08-09T23:39:40.788-05:002010-08-09T23:39:40.788-05:00This isn't "newer progressivism." It...This isn't "newer progressivism." It's a selfish entitlement mindset leading to a tragedy of the California commons.Pat Brown spinning in the gravenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-72337628906383331902010-08-09T21:26:18.855-05:002010-08-09T21:26:18.855-05:00Tim Cavanaugh at the libertarian Reason has a blog...Tim Cavanaugh at the libertarian <i>Reason</i> has <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/09/starving-the-future-in-califor" rel="nofollow">a blog post about this</a>. What caught my eye was this passage by Mr. Cavanaugh (emphasis added):<br /><br />> One of the cool things about California is that it's still a<br />> place where you see cars on cinderblocks and chicken coops in<br />> yards. I suspect what motivates the New Urbanists is not some jones<br />> to take light rail to strolling malls with high-end retail. It's<br />> something more basic: <b>aesthetic revulsion at the unsightliness of<br />> their neighbors</b>. If you apply that premise to progressives more<br />> broadly, many <b>perplexing behaviors -- socialists living in gated<br />> communities</b>, hostility to small business, even L.A.'s racist<br />> one-cock-per-person regulation -- begin to make sense.<br /><br />Naturally, I couldn't resist posting a response to this piece of libertarian chutzpah, <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/09/starving-the-future-in-califor#comment_1841431" rel="nofollow">here</a>:<br /><br />gnut|8.9.10 @ 10:07PM<br /><br />Once all housing is under the control of privatize corporate governments, <a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv28n3/v28n3-2.pdf" rel="nofollow">which is idealized by the libertarians at Cato</a>, those unsightly neighbors and their cars on cinderblocks and their chicken coops will be forced out of your neighborhood.<br /><br />The libertarian "Houston Lawyer" posted at Volokh.com, "<a href="http://volokh.com/2010/01/04/george-will-on-blight-condemnations-in-new-york/#comment-720516" rel="nofollow">Why the ragging on HOAs? I have found that they are far more responsive than city government. My one phone call to the HOA stopped a neighbor from parking a Ford Excursion in his front yard.</a>" It's not only the liberals who experience "aesthetic revulsion at the unsightliness of their neighbors," and are willing to trade liberty for the (false) promise of protected property values.<br /><br />Given the tyranny by, collectivist nature of, and the lack of individual private property rights in HOAs -- which is why I refer to them as privatized corporate communism -- the idea of "socialists living in gated communities" should not be seen as "perplexing."<br /><br />As an anonymous "Southern California professional woman" quoted by Robert Nelson said "I thought I'd never live in a planned unit development but then I realized I wanted a single-family detached home with some control over my neighbors" ("Collective Ownership of American Housing: A Social Revolution in Local Governance" July 2000). <i>(sic)</i><br /><br />I understand that libertarians believe that gated communities (and HOAs in general) are manifestations of the free market, not socialism. It's a position I disagree with, but that's what libertarians keep telling me. See, for example, John McClaughry's defense of gated communities in the August/September 1995 issue of <i>Reason</i> (article title: "<a href="http://reason.com/archives/1995/08/01/private-idahoes" rel="nofollow">Private Idahoes</a>"). Or Robert Nelson's "Privatizing the Neighborhood" (1999). Or "Free-Market Alternatives to Zoning" (Independence Institute, 2003) (<i>sic</i>, 2009). Perhaps they're just a bunch of closet communists?<br /><br />Of course, anyone familiar with the issue knows that HOAs are the result of municipal mandates and incentives that create massive distortions in the housing markets, leaving consumers with less -- and sometimes no -- choice. But every libertarian I've argued with this about, including here at Hit & Run, is unfamiliar with the thesis presented by Steve Siegal in "The Public Role in Establishing Private Residential Communities: Towards a New Formulation of Local Government Land Use Polices That Eliminates The Legal Requirements To Privatize New Communities In The United States" (<i>Urban Lawyer</i>. Fall 2006).gnuthttp://paranoiatoday.com/noreply@blogger.com