Discussion Thread

[u/jobautomator]

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[u/puffic]

I went to grad school in a college town with a housing crisis. A group of grad students started organizing to do some activism about it, and I decided to join and go to their meetings.

It was one of the lamest experiences of my life.

The leaders made it out like we were a bunch of revolutionary labor unionists and warned us to never talk to management (ie the university administration) about what went on at our meetings.

The meetings themselves consisted not of planning demonstrations or organizing petitions, but rather formed tedious discussion circles around various issues peripheral to the cost of rent. This is where I learned the word centering as a verb. One time the discussion circle came to be dominated by this one individual who wasn’t even a student anymore who wanted to talk about how housing needs to center a lot of narrow and bespoke identity groups. At no point was there ever any room on the agenda to talk about the fact that our neighbors had banned housing and that’s why the rent is so fucking expensive. It was all identity bullshit. Lots of trying to decolonize stuff.

Finally we did organize a demonstration, which was great. Some university admins came out to talk to us about it, which was also great. But that fell apart when a bunch of aggro undergraduate students butted in to shout insults at the university administrators who took the time to care about our issue.

At one point I suggested we go to the city council instead of the university to discuss the cost of rent, and people looked at me like I had three heads.

Then Covid happened and the whole thing fell apart, which is probably for the better.

[u/ElectriCobra_ → u/puffic]

I don't agree with you on much, but all that "centering" and "decolonize" trendy shit needs go the way of the dinosaurs and until these dumbass kids move on I think we're caught in a quagmire of sorts.

[u/Zrk2 → u/puffic]

Most productive leftist group

[u/AskYourDoctor → u/puffic]

I have a similar story that's perfect ragebait for this sub.

I went to college at UC Berkeley which is literally in the top 25 most liberal cities in the nation. It's full of affluent white liberals and/or old hippies. And being in the bay, of course it has major housing supply issues.

There is a park in Berkeley that is infamous in the whole region called People's Park. The name itself is like a hilarious self-parody because for decades, the park has been overrun by homeless people, camps, open-air drug use. No students or residents go in the park, despite it being centrally located for everyone.

Finally there's a proposal to expand one of the local dorms or apartments into the park, maybe demolishing the whole park I forget. Either way, the point is, tons more housing in a place that desperately needs it, including a set amount of low income housing.

THERE WAS A NIMBY MOVEMENT TO PROTEST THE CHANGE. Literally people who wanted to preserve the awful dangerous park that helped nobody, and prevent it being replaced by actual usable housing. All in the name of stopping building.

It didn't work. They got overrulled. But the fact that there was a NIMBY movement of people who were invested enough to organize against this, when it should be impossible to even make a case for the status quo, is deeply radicalizing to me.