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Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

1/OK, so. Let's talk about Left-NIMBYism.

We all know about Right-NIMBYs, rabidly protecting their white-flight suburbs from Those People. And there are plenty of liberal NIMBYs too.

But NIMBYs of the Left are also a force to be reckoned

 2/Left-NIMBYs have developed a canon of interlocking, mutually reinforcing beliefs about housing and urbanism.

These beliefs are mostly false, but they form a powerful "canon" that quickly ossifies into a hardened worldview.

It looks something like this:
3/Fortunately, Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs has written an article that perfectly encapsulates the Left-NIMBY worldview (and quotes me in it!).

So this is a teachable moment.

https://t.co/nvFJryQZGi
4/Robinson selectively quotes a Bloomberg article of mine (https://t.co/iamRrW6oei).

Look at the part he quoted, vs. what I actually wrote!

Pretty different, eh? 😉
5/In fact, as I wrote in the article that Robinson failed to read more than one line of, it's theoretically possible that Left-NIMBYs COULD be right that allowing market-rate housing drives up local rents.

I take that possibility very seriously, as do YIMBYs.
6/But as always in economics, we need to look at the EVIDENCE, not just theory!

And although there isn't a mountain of evidence on market-rate housing yet, some evidence is starting to pile up.

And it doesn't look great for the Left-NIMBY theory.
7/For example, here's a 2016 paper by Xiaodi Li about what happens to nearby rents when you build market-rate housing.

https://t.co/AwrJTJK2lY
8/And here's a brand-new paper by Kate Pennington about what happens to rents and to gentrification when you build market-rate housing in San Francisco:

https://t.co/8GCbE1jNOC
9/And here's a 2019 paper by Brian Asquith, Evan Mast, and David Reed, about what happens to rents and to gentrification when you build market-rate housing:

https://t.co/6YPHc38NDF
10/There are others (https://t.co/Hp3ecU9Ly0, https://t.co/AjipSyRSOy), but the general result here is starting to become clear.

Market-rate housing lowers nearby rents while drawing high-income people away from low-income neighborhoods.
11/In fact, reality looks very much like my "Yuppie Fishtank Theory" (which is really just a segmented markets model).

It's an explanation of why YIMBYism doesn't need Econ 101 or Supply-and-Demand:

https://t.co/8o6V0L4Wbv
12/But Robinson gets things even more wrong when he claims that YIMBYs are Randian shills who hate public housing and demand that market-rate housing be the only solution.

Here's what he writes:
13/Robinson singles out three YIMBY organizations for his accusations:
California YIMBY
YIMBY Action
Open New York

Let's see what each one has to say about public housing, shall we?

Here's Brian Hanlon, co-founder of California YIMBY.

https://t.co/hU4hWQh1Px
14/Here's Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action:

https://t.co/M52O8R67St
15/Here's Ben Carlos Thypin, founder of Open New York:

https://t.co/OxII8YxxKh
16/Robinson simply failed (or refused) to do his homework. His characterization of these YIMBYs is utterly wrong. In reality, they're just a bunch of lefties who want to build ALL types of housing instead of insisting on just one.
17/In fact, I think the conflict between YIMBYs and Left-NIMBYs is not fundamentally about evidence, or about public housing.

It's about preservationism vs. growth and change. Left-NIMBYs want to stand athwart urban history, yelling Stop.
18/Whereas YIMBYs recognizes that cities will always grow and change, and we can't preserve them in amber. Instead, we have to shape their growth into something equitable and inclusive.
19/Left-NIMBYism is not confined to the West Coast; you see it popping up in cities across the nation. It's wrongheaded, but it's something we're going to have to deal with as we fight to make American cities livable for everyone.

(end)

https://t.co/05c6IMSc4y
Anyway, if you like this sort of thing, you can sign up for my free email list, and have my posts delivered directly to your inbox!

https://t.co/FGppA1M8W6

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Labor disputes used to kill hundreds of people!

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1/OK, I should really write another thread about university-centric regional development, because I think people often make some (very understandable) mistakes when thinking about this issue.

2/The biggest myth, I think, is that universities help regions by educating locals as undergraduates.

Skeptics of universities say: "But most of the people who graduate end up leaving."

3/In fact, most of what a university does for a regional economy is NOT about educating local kids.

Educating local kids is good for the nation, but doesn't help a region much.

The way a university helps a region is through

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But university RESEARCH pulls in OTHER smart people from other regions, and they stay there.

Here's a paper showing that this is the main way universities increase a region's human capital:

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This thread demonstrates that a lot of academic writing that *looks* like utter nonsense is merely scholars dressing up a useful but mundane point with a ton of unnecessary jargon.


My theory is that the jargon creates an artificial barrier to entry. https://t.co/MqLyyppdHl

If one must spend years marinating one's brain in jargon to be perceived as an expert on a topic, it protects the status and earning power of people who study relatively easy topics.

In econ, a similar thing is accomplished by what recent Nobel prize winner Paul Romer calls "mathiness": https://t.co/DBCRRc8Mir

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Jargon usually doesn't force you to change the substance of your central point.

Mathiness often does. By forcing you to write your model in a way that's mathematically tractable (easy to work with), mathiness often impoverishes your understanding of how the world really works.

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Noah Smith \U0001f407
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1/Today's Substack post is about Biden's chances of becoming a truly transformational president -- someone who will move U.S. economic policy onto a leftward track, as Reagan once moved it onto a rightward

2/Political scientist Stephen Skowronek has a theory that says we're due for a "reconstructive" President who will define a new paradigm for the next few

3/Like most people, I thought Biden would be an incrementalist centrist who would get little done other than restoring competence and morality to the executive branch (and that alone would have been plenty of reason to vote for him!).

4/When I read Skowronek's theory, I read it as a prediction of a Bernie or Warren presidency.

I did not imagine that Biden could be a transformational president.

BUT, it's looking like he just might be one!

5/Check out @mehdirhasan's rundown of Biden's rapid blitz.
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Noah Smith
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Today's @bopinion post is about how poor countries started catching up to rich ones.

It looks like decolonization just took a few decades to start

Basic econ theory says poor countries should grow faster than rich ones.

But for much of the Industrial Revolution, the opposite happened.
https://t.co/JjjVtWzz5c

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But then colonial empires went away. And yet still, for the next 30 years or so, poor countries fell further behind rich ones.
https://t.co/hilDvv0IQV

Why??

Possible reasons:
1. Bad institutions (dictators, communism, autarkic trade regimes)
2. Civil wars
3. Lack of education

But then, starting in the 80s (for China) and the 90s (for India and Indonesia), some of the biggest poor countries got their acts together and started to catch up!


Global inequality began to fall.
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Recently heard the podcast by @sikhyaent on Saravana Bhavan founder P Rajagopal, who stalked the young daughter of an employee & had her husband killed. Observations: the podcast's title ('Dosa King') glorifies PR, the script trivialises his crime, calling it a mere "scandal"

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A thread for the headships at Twitter:

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1.Abigail Shrier & JK Rowling are leaders of a world wide cult that believes woman are equal to men and must be stopped @AbigailShrier

2.I am a real man, bio is wrong; I gave birth through my penis hole that I was led to believe by evangelicals was my vaginaWICKED Christians

3.Just because I transitioned doesn’t mean I know more than a 6 year old & I should be ashamed & embarrassed to believe I know more than people or children who have never been through or witnessed or dealt with medical transition

4.Gender Dysphoria is NOT a mental illness & should never be challenged & medical transition should be administered at, “Mom/Dad I feel like a..” IMMEDIATELY NO QUESTIONS ASKED

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Thrikkangode Sree Randu Moorthy Temple
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#keralatemples

This is very unique temple as Shiva and Vishnu both are in the “linga” form in the same Garbhagriham. The Srikovil is in a circular pattern. Temple's Prathishta was done by Parasurama.


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The root of the banyan tree around the Ayyappa Sannidhanam is said to have great powers for skin ailments.

Very ancient temple but was covered with forest for many years.
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Vigrahams and it suddenly started bleeding. Later Devaprashnam was held and thus found out that these were murthy's of Shiva and Vishnu which was worshipped long back. And thus temple is constructed here.
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IT WAS RISHI KANADA WHO GAVE THE ATOMIC THEORY & TALKED ABOUT THE GRAVITY OF EARTH, 2600 YEARS BEFORE AN APPLE FELL IN FRONT OF NEWTON'S EYES:

Scientists of the modern world credit an English scientist John Dalton (1766 CE -1844 CE) for the Atomic Theory.


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Rishi Kanada was born around 600 BCE in Dwarka, Gujarat and he was the son of a philosopher named Ulka. He was fascinated with the minute detailing of the things right from his childhood. Once, when he was very young, he accompanied his father on a journey to Prayaga.


He saw plentiful grains scattered along the path leading to the shore of river Ganga. It's a tradition in Hindu families to scatter the grains for the ants and birds to feed on them. Suddenly, an ant caught his attention, who was feeding on a rice grain.


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Did you know?

When Saudi Arabia's King visited India in 1955, PM Nehru ordered all the Hindu Temples and Idols of Hindu Deities that came in Saudi King's way to be covered up.
Our temples are the architectural marvels in their own league.


Each of our temples tells the story of our rich history and cultural heritage. Was Nehru that ashamed of his own nation's heritage that he had to cover them up or there was some other reason? The answer would be best known to him only.

PM Nehru invited the then Saudi King Saud bin Abdul Aziz to India who accepted the invitation and planned a 17 day long official visit to India in 1955. Saudi King had brought a large delegation with him and he had to visit various Indian cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Agra,


Aligarh, Shimla, Mysore and Varanasi. However, when Saudi King reached Varanasi, Nehru ordered to cover all the temples and Idols with curtains that came in the way of the Royal Convoy. During his stay in Varanasi, Govt buildings were painted with the words "Kalma Tayyiba".


'Kalma Tayyiba' means 'There is not God but only Allah and Mohammed is his messenger'. In addition to it, Pooja and Aartis were also stopped at temples. I can call it the appeasement politics of the highest order and Nehru was indeed the greatest appeaser of all times.
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It is said that the one who bears the dust thrown from the hoof of Gaumata on his head, as if taking a bath in the water of the teerth sthalam and getting rid of all sins.


Ved and all other Hindu scriptures venerate the cow. The Vedic dictionary, Nighantu, gives amongst other synonyms of 'Gau' [ or cow] the words 'Aghnya', 'Ahi', and 'Aditi'.

Yaska the vedic decoder and commentator on Nighantu, defines these as-

Aghnya —— the one that ought not to be killed
Ahi —— the one that must not be slaughtered.
Aditi —— the one that ought not to be cut into pieces.

These three names of cow signify that this is an animal which should not to be put to tortures. These words appear frequently throughout the Veda in context of the cow.

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