New “blue” states like Minnesota and Michigan are doing a lot of good for their citizens and cementing their blue status for years to come, but old school blue states have this NIMBY mentality that prevents fixing problems, and it is ruining WA, OR, CA, MA, and NY, all of which have big housing shortages that CAN be easily fixed with new housing, but perennial zoning laws written 50 years ago to protect housing values are generating homeless situations. Red states have these NIMBY laws too.
Yes, something important to remember about Oregon specifically is that there were really explicit exclusion laws up into the 1920s to stop black people moving there. We think of Portland and hippie bookstore taco garage vegan ice cream shops and whatever but it’s still a very non-diverse state to this day (something like a 2% black population).
So I think the overwhelmingly white demographic combined with a rural area that is still quite racist and conservative, are what make Oregon a weirdly behaving blue state.
Not every state is sitting on their hands. California (at least) is doing something about it.
In Sept. 2021 Newsom signed California legislation with $1.75 billion in funding for additional housing. Besides the cash infusion it tries to make it easier to deal with NIMBY zoning issues. That’s obviously not enough and there’s more legislation in the works with lots of different proposals to increase available housing.
New “blue” states like Minnesota and Michigan are doing a lot of good for their citizens and cementing their blue status for years to come, but old school blue states have this NIMBY mentality that prevents fixing problems, and it is ruining WA, OR, CA, MA, and NY, all of which have big housing shortages that CAN be easily fixed with new housing, but perennial zoning laws written 50 years ago to protect housing values are generating homeless situations. Red states have these NIMBY laws too.
Yes, something important to remember about Oregon specifically is that there were really explicit exclusion laws up into the 1920s to stop black people moving there. We think of Portland and hippie bookstore taco garage vegan ice cream shops and whatever but it’s still a very non-diverse state to this day (something like a 2% black population).
So I think the overwhelmingly white demographic combined with a rural area that is still quite racist and conservative, are what make Oregon a weirdly behaving blue state.
Not every state is sitting on their hands. California (at least) is doing something about it.
In Sept. 2021 Newsom signed California legislation with $1.75 billion in funding for additional housing. Besides the cash infusion it tries to make it easier to deal with NIMBY zoning issues. That’s obviously not enough and there’s more legislation in the works with lots of different proposals to increase available housing.