Atlantic staff writer Jerusalem Demsas, whom I’ve cited in previous posts, writes again about the nature and tone of public input in local land use and housing considerations.  In his most recent piece, The Billionaire’s Dilemma, he demonstrates that opposition to housing variety in neighborhoods certainly is reflected among those of higher income and social status, but also from those all across the political spectrum, both progressive and conservative.

Demsas’ story is about Silicon Valley billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, who was key to funding such start-ups as Facebook, Skype, Lift, Pinterest, Airbnb, and Slack, among others.  Not long ago, on his venture capital firm’s website, Andreesen posted an essay, It’s Time to Build, which expressed his opinion on how society in general appeared to be suffering a malaise in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, and it was time to get going again, that things needed to happen, new things be built, in realms from health care and transportation to education and manufacturing – and, housing!  He says in his post:

You don’t just see this smug complacency, this satisfaction with the status quo and the unwillingness to build, in the pandemic, or in healthcare generally. You see it throughout Western life, and specifically throughout American life.

You see it in housing and the physical footprint of our cities. We can’t build nearly enough housing in our cities with surging economic potential — which results in crazily skyrocketing housing prices in places like San Francisco, making it nearly impossible for regular people to move in and take the jobs of the future.

He notes that the solution is, in all areas including housing:

The problem is inertia. We need to want these things more than we want to prevent these things. The problem is regulatory capture. We need to want new companies to build these things, even if incumbents don’t like it, even if only to force the incumbents to build these things. And the problem is will. We need to build these things.

Andreesen goes on to excoriate both sides of the political spectrum for their maintaining the status quo.  He says:

The left starts out with a stronger bias toward the public sector in many of these areas. To which I say, prove the superior model! Demonstrate that the public sector can build better hospitals, better schools, better transportation, better cities, better housing. Stop trying to protect the old, the entrenched, the irrelevant; commit the public sector fully to the future.

He concludes by calling out leaders and citizens:

Building isn’t easy, or we’d already be doing all this. We need to demand more of our political leaders, of our CEOs, our entrepreneurs, our investors. We need to demand more of our culture, of our society. And we need to demand more from one another. We’re all necessary, and we can all contribute, to building.

All this sounds very supportive of getting communities to revamp their regulatory frameworks and enable more needed housing to be built.  But Demsas points out that in practice, Andreesen (and, by extension, many other “progressive” citizens) don’t adhere to their own philosophy.

Andreesen lives in Atherton, California, right in the heart of Silicon Valley next to Palo Alto.  As befits the place where a billionaire lives, Atherton is listed as one of the most expensive zip codes in America.  Recently Atherton city officials, in compliance with California state requirements to address moderate income housing, submitted plans to the state Department of Housing and Community Development for adopting multi-family housing zoning overlays throughout the city.  As might be expected, the comments from city residents went nuts, including from Andreesen.  His comment?

Subject line: IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development!

I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton … Please IMMEDIATELY REMOVE all multifamily overlay zoning projects from the Housing Element which will be submitted to the state in July. They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values, the quality of life of ourselves and our neighbors and IMMENSELY increase the noise pollution and traffic.

This kind of hypocrisy generally displayed by NIMBYs led Demsas to conclude:

Andreessen intimately understands the arguments for increased housing production in thriving job markets such as San Francisco and the surrounding areas. He knows that failing to build housing has hurt the economic prospects of workers and families throughout the region. And he was incensed enough by this knowledge and its implications for the nation to write the aforementioned essay. But when the time came, he apparently opposed new housing in his backyard. The hypocrisy itself is galling, if informative. Andreessen might well support legislation upzoning neighborhoods across California. This macro-micro disconnect should push policy makers to grasp that they cannot reason with NIMBYs on a project-by-project basis. They have to eliminate NIMBYism’s veto power by moving decision-making to the state level.

Is it surprising?  Not really.  Is it the right solution?  Probably not, but it’s hard to argue for anything else when this is the narrative that’s out there.