Even Diary
Go Bears! Yesterday I went to watch two soccer matches, one for girls against Oregon State in the afternoon, another for boys also against Oregon State at night. The girls had a tie 0:0 but they were clearly dominating, especially during the second half. The boys defeated the other team 1:0. I learned from a private soccer couch from Richmond that Oregon State is #3 in the nation, which means beating them is not something of minor significance. He prefers players playing by skills, mostly in the capability of controlling the ball, not winning by running like Stanford did, which in his words is “stupid to watch.”
Too bad I was not aware of the matches earlier and the remaining of the season girls will only play away from home. The only thing left at home is the boys on April 10 against San Diego State!
Single Family Zoning
This editorial from SF Chronicle is good to expose us to the problems associated with single family zoning, something that started in Berkeley decades ago but is apparently out dated today. As this article made clear: “As American as apple pie, the single-family home has become synonymous with individual achievement in the United States.” The same report told us why: “Homeownership is the main driver of wealth for most middle-class Americans, with homeowners’ median net worth a whopping 80 times larger than that of renters, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”
I did not even know what the term “single family zone” meant before reading that editorial, which however implicitly assumes everyone knows the term and never really explained it. I had to Google the term and then came to this report from KQED: “Single-family zoning makes it illegal for a community to build anything other than a single home on a single lot. That means no apartment buildings, condos or duplexes.” Somewhat shockingly, KQED reports that “UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute found that 83% of residential land in the Bay Area is devoted to single-family zoning. That means that on only 17% of the land, it’s legal to build apartments, condos, duplexes of triplexes.”
Furthermore, “The same Othering & Belonging Institute study found that as you increase the percentage of single-family zoning in a city, you increase the percentage of white residents.”
It is with this in the background to learn “Berkeley’s City Council voted unanimously Thursday night to advance measures to undo single-family zoning and dramatically expand a deliberately suppressed housing supply. A month after voting to dismantle single-family zoning in principle, the council agreed to begin the process of changing the city’s general plan to accommodate nearly 9,000 more housing units by a variety of means, including allowing duplexes and other multifamily dwellings across the vast swaths of the city restricted to suburban-style homes.”
This simply makes sense in a city where the demand for housing is so much higher than the current supply! Other municipals, states and the whole country should follow the suit.
Government Opens Bank Accounts for The Homeless
This morning I heard from the Google News that the Biden rescue checks had trouble reaching those who did not file tax in 2019 and 2020. Many homeless people had no bank account, no tax filing required — and therefore no government checks this time. The same report mentioned that some for-profit firm tried to leverage this gap and asked to get the check of $1,200 or $1,400 delivered to the homeless but they will charge $400 for the fee! Even though the charge is high, some homeless are willing to do it — getting $800 or $1,000 is better than nothing.
I heard someone saying in the news that the government should open a bank account for the homeless so they can get the full money without being ripped off. That’s an excellent idea I think. Such bank accounts will be special with zero minimum balance and minimum charge because they are highly inactive. Meanwhile, they will be secured as is supported by the government. The latter may even pick up the service charges for the homeless or extremely low income account owners.
Republicans Are Moving Toward A Wrong Direction
If anything that is clearly on the wrong side of the history, restricting voter rights clearly is. Unfortunately we are seeing the Republicans doing exactly that right in front of our naked eyes. It is once again a perfect example how historical positions can switch from time to time, depending not on a single driver like democracy or not, or types of institutions, but rather on a multitude of factors, with expected payoffs one of the most important drivers, just like the game theory had predicted. Without gerrymanders, without added voter restrictions, GOP expects to lose in the next election and more after that.