Yeah, encountering Dave on the streets is a pretty common occurrence there. It’s not a big place and he’s often out and about in coffeeshops and whatnot.
On the one hand: Ok, the government is letting people build housing, right? And there’s still an affordability problem, right? So maybe that’s not the issue.
On the other hand: Where are those houses being built? (in Idaho - and they’re making housing cost more there)
Is “punching down” really the right phrase for what he’s doing there? He’s criticizing his own racial group. The jokes may not be appropriate, ok, but I don’t think it should be classified as punching down, right?
It’s all well and good for a group of Progressive white guys to have hot takes on Dave Chapelle’s alleged racism, but I’d be more interested in how he’s being judged by Black people.
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A example of the claim that zoning regulations are preventing the development of affordable housing with reasonably clear right and wrong sides of the issue. That’s the basic thing that people keep asserting without anybody ever bothering to show their work. I, a person who has been studying urban development both formally and informally for decades, do not believe those situations exist in any significant number. Rather, I have become convinced that power dynamics amongst people of means combined with inherent scarcity of land results in an intractable mess that will likely never be resolved in a way that benefits anybody who really needs housing help.
If you want my opinion about real world policies that could help those truly in need, it would be the elimination of public sleeping bans and encampment clearings, relaxing restrictions on informal housing, and providing those living in situations like the above with much more assistance than they are currently receiving. And guillotining billionaires. That should always be on the table.
As far as the rest, the best anybody is going to accomplish is maybe nibble away at the edges a bit in limited circumstances.
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He, a millionaire black guy who grew up in an upper class suburb and has absolutely no connection to the type of neighborhood in Queens that he’s portraying, is making fun of how those other black people would spend reparations. Kind of like how Chris Rock helpfully told us the difference between black people and n-words. They built careers on, among other things, telling extremely racist jokes to white people who ate it up.
Maybe punching down isn’t the right term, I don’t know. It feels pretty gross though.
I mean I can provide anecdotes of proposed MFDs in “historic” residential neighborhoods in Baltimore that did not get approval when they requested variances, but I’m not sure that proves anything on a large scale.
Can you give a brief cliffs on what some of the arguments are for keeping residential areas SFD only? I understand things like limitations related to parking/traffic/sewage capacity/etc, what are some other considerations? If that’s too broad of a question, I understand.
I answer these calls every time, it’s the highlight of my day. I lead them on wild goose chases where i am “looking for my credit card.” I try different things all the time, I like to give them believable sob stories about horrible stuff that has happened to me recently in order to expose how awful they are. Sometimes I take them to the bathroom and just make absurd noises until they hang up.
The stupider you act the better; a couple of them are kind of sharp and started busting out Hindi insults within seconds. They ALWAYS insult you and talk mad shit when they realize you’re messing with them.
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Great post.
I was going to say something about letting people build whatever in some open space and not having the government protect long term vacant properties from squatters. And more people squatting lowers property values which increases affordability!
Although I agree that some white people are going to miss the obvious parody and may just enjoy hearing Black people insult each other, it’s not abnormal for comics to poke fun at their own ethnic/racial group, especially if the audience is predominantly the same minority group.
Calling Chappelle racist for his parody jokes about Black people would seem to imply that Black people who enjoy these jokes are self-hating.
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Rent a thread mo************s
In other LC news… I need the Cliffs/TheGood parts… 
https://mobile.twitter.com/Variety/status/1360273134499344386
Because us Scots have the same jokes said about us everyday by ourselves I see Dave as 1 of his own and very not racist.
And the rest was wasted…
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Old folks like me might remember getting solicitations from long distance providers. When they would ask me who my current provider was I’d answer “I use tin cans and string.”
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The argument is that the people who live there don’t want multi-family housing, and it doesn’t accomplish much anyway. I know you said earlier that people shouldn’t get to dictate what happens on land down the street, but that’s exactly what democracy is. If you’re going to violate democratic land use it should be for damn good reason, but the benefits in the sorts of cases you’re talking about are pretty dubious and don’t typically accrue to anybody who really needs help. It’s playing favorites between the 70th and the 80th income percentiles while pissing in the ocean when it comes to overall urban density and housing availability.
Should more dense housing be allowed in many parts of many cities? Yeah, probably. Will it matter? No, not really. Cities tend to evolve on their own time frames in response to social, economic, and demographic forces that are largely outside of human control.
Alright I mean that’s fair enough, and I can respect that viewpoint, but I disagree with the idea that people get to decide what kind of housing is built in their neighborhood.
Why should people who don’t live there have more say than those who do?
Self depreciating humor is like the #1 type for stand-ups. If a comic is overweight they’ll have joked about eating. If they’re awkward it will about not getting laid. Etc.
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Because we’ve got a long history of housing discrimination that pretty clearly demonstrates that those local decisions will be weaponized against disadvantaged groups.
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There are too many simultaneous conversations going on in here.
What side is more NIMBY? i am against that side.
There’s clearly large problems when you have to be in the 80th household income percentile to afford the median house sold in America each year. Was it always this way?