Thread by @drvolts

Because I excel at time management, I've just been spending some time in a NextDoor thread about a petition that would upzone my neighborhood to allow for dense low-income house. Naturally, the neighbors are in a total panic. What about parking?!

I dropped in to say, "Please support upzoning. Seattle desperately needs new housing."

The very first response -- I'm not making this up -- was from Linda: "Not if Seattle would be more selective in new residents."

Golly. What do you suppose she means?

More Linda: "I was not being unkind, David. I just don't think it is right that so many move to Seattle from other areas because they know they can get so many freebies in Seattle that we end up paying for. Seattle used to be a beautiful city, it is not anymore."

From Bonnie: "Parking is a big problem and developers should provide a parking garage as part of the building. They built one of those cube apartments in our neighborhood with no parking. Now our streets are lined with cars and they have become 1-lane streets."

But Bonnie, why should developers be *forced* to build parking even where tenants don't want it?

"What about the people who own houses and have lived there for years and have used the street parking for company or workmen, etc. Now they can't park in front of their own homes?"

I mean, I know. Forget it, Jake, it's NextDoor.

Still though. Imagine just blithely pricing people out of homes, or reducing housing stock, because the FREE STREET PARKING PAID FOR BY TAXPAYERS becomes incrementally less convenient for you. What is wrong with people.