Cea Weaver

Attended a housing rights forum last night at which tenants' rights advocates patly asserted that thick coalitions between renters and homeowners are possible because the latter are "tenants of the bank" or "tenants to property taxes." 1/

Have leftists really not come to terms with the conflicting interests of renters and homeowners when it comes to rezonings, etc.? You know how you stop being a "tenant of the bank"? Inflate your property values by pushing downzonings/opposing upzonings. 2/

Maybe advocates are so easily assuaged on the idea of solidarity with homeowners because they haven't spent enough time pushing upzonings in wealthy neighborhoods (even though, per the forum, they understand the relationship b/w gentrification and "protective rezonings")? 3/

You know what a protective rezoning protects? Landowners' (including homeowners') property values? 4/

The people and institutions upholding so-called “wealthy neighborhoods” themselves—bound up in exclusionary policy and racist custom—are a common enemy of both renters and homeowners in poor cities, no?

Depends on what policies you're pushing. If low-income homeowners are pushing local control of every development decision, as we are seeing from some in #NHV, then they are aligning themselves with wealthy suburbanites to the detriment of all renters.

Today’s homeowners in cities are tomorrow’s victims of the next foreclosure crisis. Today’s renters are tomorrow’s homeowners. Seeking structural change that is bigger than renter vs homeowner and socialist but helps the ordinary folks in both camps is good!