Yes, but on the flip side thousands of people will no longer be paying $3k/mo in rent for a shitty apartment, and homelessness will drop dramatically.
The anti-NIMBY movement didn't come about because people want to override existing communities. It came about because people need a place to live, and NIMBYs were actively campaigning against it for decades with no consideration for the needs of others.
Now, I think it's reached the stage where at least among young people making their lives miserable is honestly seen as a positive.
If you expect to have retail stores, teachers, and tradespeople nearby, then you need to build housing they can afford. If everyone has a one-hour commute to get to their job at 7-11 you're going to see even more inflation.
Would love to have a law that the minimum wage for people whose services you use, whether that person lives close or far, must be enough to pay for the mortgage at, say, 40th percentile of a studio in the area. Want that receptionist at the doctor to make an appointment for you? Want somebody to restock the shelves at the grocery store? Better pay up... Want to go to a doctor's office that has a janitorial service? Better expect those janitors to get paid.
We have an entire generation of extremely over privileged, overly entitled, and narcissistic people setting housing policy that seemingly have no idea about all the labor that makes all their lives possible. We are reaching "let them eat cake" levels of self-deception from homeowners.
People want to live where the jobs are. It doesn’t make sense for California to brag about being the world’s fifth largest economy but to also plan on housing 0 new people a year.
No one is taking single family homes from people in Santa Monica. They are just saying anyone who wants to sell they can now turn that into apartments. If you frame it the way I'm describing it really it's the NIMBY people who "need" santa monica to be a certain way
And that’s happening, but still your plumber has to come from somewhere. As the need to commute drops the population density that can be accommodated will rise just because there won’t be huge flows of commuter traffic.
My quick kaging tells me a plumber in Santa Monica makes on average $80k, and the average software dev makes $90. I think you underestimate how much skilled trades actually make. The parallel thread regarding unskilled labor (janitors) is more to the point. Even then, somehow, the building are clean even in places considerably more expensive than Santa Monica. I don’t think the homeless camps are filled with janitors, but I very well could be wrong. I know a lot of recent homeless are people simply priced out of being homed. A solution in my mind lies somewhere between razing every single family home and erecting massive Soviet style block housing across the skyline and disallowing any change to any structure.
The people who do it today, but with the people who don’t have to live there for work gone, their housing will be more affordable. Unless you’re saying there’s no janitors in Santa Monica?
The anti-NIMBY movement didn't come about because people want to override existing communities. It came about because people need a place to live, and NIMBYs were actively campaigning against it for decades with no consideration for the needs of others.
Now, I think it's reached the stage where at least among young people making their lives miserable is honestly seen as a positive.