Regarding the 90-day approval-by-default. Is the assumption that enforcement happens after the fact, during the actual project? If not, BillyBob's brother-in-law who's in charge of permit review can easily run out the clock to make sure BillyBob's development goes ahead, regardless. Makes cronyism incredibly easy and plausibly deniable.
"Community input is bad actually" is not spicy, it's table stakes. If you have rights and the rule of law, you make laws and follow them. Housing is by right, and the only community input happens years earlier, when laws, including zoning, are decided on.
Your observation about community input is dead wrong in CA and in many other areas of the US. No matter what the zoning classification is, the neighbors dictate what actually gets built. I know this after a 5 year very expensive legal battle to build a small 60-bed memory care facility in LA on a 35k cars/day street adjacent to a residential area infested with NIMBY fear mongers. Taking that power away from them would be a great first step. Electing council members with integrity and a longer vision than five minutes would also help.
At a quick glance, nearly all your examples seem to be drawn from libertarian/classical liberal or center-right sources. Is that intentional or accidental?
Maybe just reflects my personal political leanings! But even the left-leaning folks I know in the progress movement think regulatory reform is necessary to pull back the vetocracy and let us build again. If you want left-wing goals like making the green energy transition happen or providing lots of affordable housing, you need that.
If there are relevant sources I left out, please share!
I would describe your article as practical and nonpartisan, but to the extent that it has a political view, left liberal. Surprised anyone thinks otherwise, but then too life is all about people having different views.
Nuclear; clean, safe? Is there a way to measure the cancer related to the Fukushima disaster? Or Chernobyl? Do we just send the spent rods into space? Isn’t it something like a million years before nuclear byproducts approach “safe” for humankind?
What to do with the spent rods: they can be easily encased in concrete and safely buried. The amount of waste generated is extremely small, so it's not a lot of work to deal with. And it is not a million years, more like 600 years: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/a-tale-of-two-particles
Good list. The big addition I would suggest is criminal justice reform. I think there is an opportunity to dramatically reduce crime and improve public safety while still reducing mass incarceration.
I'd also quibble with including crypto on the list, since I think it's actually a net negative for society.
Great collection and take!
I bet Elon Musk would love legalizing supersonic
When's DOGE gonna end the penny?
Regarding the 90-day approval-by-default. Is the assumption that enforcement happens after the fact, during the actual project? If not, BillyBob's brother-in-law who's in charge of permit review can easily run out the clock to make sure BillyBob's development goes ahead, regardless. Makes cronyism incredibly easy and plausibly deniable.
Yeah as I understand it you certainly don't get to break the law with impunity simply because you got through the first 90 days!
"Community input is bad actually" is not spicy, it's table stakes. If you have rights and the rule of law, you make laws and follow them. Housing is by right, and the only community input happens years earlier, when laws, including zoning, are decided on.
Everything else is YIMBY Underreach.
Your observation about community input is dead wrong in CA and in many other areas of the US. No matter what the zoning classification is, the neighbors dictate what actually gets built. I know this after a 5 year very expensive legal battle to build a small 60-bed memory care facility in LA on a 35k cars/day street adjacent to a residential area infested with NIMBY fear mongers. Taking that power away from them would be a great first step. Electing council members with integrity and a longer vision than five minutes would also help.
At a quick glance, nearly all your examples seem to be drawn from libertarian/classical liberal or center-right sources. Is that intentional or accidental?
Maybe just reflects my personal political leanings! But even the left-leaning folks I know in the progress movement think regulatory reform is necessary to pull back the vetocracy and let us build again. If you want left-wing goals like making the green energy transition happen or providing lots of affordable housing, you need that.
If there are relevant sources I left out, please share!
I would describe your article as practical and nonpartisan, but to the extent that it has a political view, left liberal. Surprised anyone thinks otherwise, but then too life is all about people having different views.
What part of it seemed left-leaning?
Nuclear; clean, safe? Is there a way to measure the cancer related to the Fukushima disaster? Or Chernobyl? Do we just send the spent rods into space? Isn’t it something like a million years before nuclear byproducts approach “safe” for humankind?
Yes, nuclear is clean and safe: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh
Radiation deaths from Fukushima: 0–1. Yes, really. Chernobyl was worse, but it was also the result of very bad plant designs that are not used anymore and were never used in the US. https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima
What to do with the spent rods: they can be easily encased in concrete and safely buried. The amount of waste generated is extremely small, so it's not a lot of work to deal with. And it is not a million years, more like 600 years: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/a-tale-of-two-particles
More here: https://blog.rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flop
Good list. The big addition I would suggest is criminal justice reform. I think there is an opportunity to dramatically reduce crime and improve public safety while still reducing mass incarceration.
I'd also quibble with including crypto on the list, since I think it's actually a net negative for society.