George Lucas, Facebook, and the Crisis of NIMBYism
28th May 2012
Dumb rules prevent Silicon Valley from building the houses and offices we need to power American innovation.
Apparently even Left Coast ‘progressives’ get tired of their ideological fellows from time to time.
The stretch of the United States running from San Jose, north through Silicon Valley, up to San Francisco and into the North Bay suburbs is the one of the most prosperous places in the history of humankind. But for the dynamic enterprises in that part of the country to live up to their full potential—and for Americans as a whole to benefit from them—we need to combine innovation, talent, and venture capital with old-fashioned things like buildings and people. And right now, idiotic land-use policies are restricting the area’s growth.
When Matthew Yglesias starts sounding like Newt Gingrich, you know it’s gotta be bad.
George Lucas currently stands accused of “inciting class warfare” by Caroline Lenert, head of the North San Rafael Coalition of Residents in Marin County.
In other words, intending to build housing for poor people in a rich people’s neighborhood. (If the government were doing it, perhaps under a DOJ mandate, presumably they wouldn’t have a problem with it. It certainly wouldn’t stop them voting fascists like Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer into Congress.)
Pass the popcorn.