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On the counterfactual, it's actually not very smart, and a toxic and myopic view of society. There's an entire spectrum of coordinating collective human behavior that ranges from systems like feudalism to anarcho-syndicalism to mixed economies like those that exist in Scandinavia and much of Western Europe. Government's role is infinitely flexible as a result; it can choose to be as expansive or as minimal as possible. In the case of housing, which is an issue where there needs to be mass action to ensure additional housing supply, relying on either the free market or government exclusively is not going to fix the problem. One of the things that a lot of pseudo-intellectual YIMBYs in the Bay and elsewhere don't realize about the housing crisis is that it will require massive mobilization action by both public and private actors to solve. For instance, I rarely hear the YIMBY crowd sing the praises of public housing, a model that has been successful[1] in Singapore, Vienna, and many other cities across the globe.

I find the anti-government sentiments and libertarian beats on this website frequently tiring at best, gravely ill-conceived at worst.

[1]https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore/

I'm not an expert on Utah or on racism, but I know that SLC and Ogden, both cities in Utah, had HOLC maps with redlining.

There were Black people in Utah before the LDS church. There were Black slaves owned by members of the LDS church until slavery was made illegal, and there are and were Black Mormons since the time of Brigham Young. Per the below link, there might have been more that came or stayed on in Utah, if the area had been more welcoming, but discrimination in housing, work opportunity, and arguably in the LDS faith had an impact.

As best I can tell, Utah never had a particularly big Black population, and many many racist policies kept it that way. I suppose you could argue that that's natural, but I don't see it.

Redlining Maps: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining

Utah and African Americans (1994) https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/a/African_Americans.shtml

100 Year History of Racist Housing Policy: https://www.shareable.net/timeline-of-100-years-of-racist-housing-policy-that-created-a-separate-and-unequal-america/

Except that does not happen. For example, https://www.shareable.net/disaster-collectivism-how-communities-rise-together-to-respond-to-crises/

“When a disaster strikes, like the flooding in Houston [after Hurricane Harvey], for example, you see everyday people pouring out all this generosity and solidarity,” says Christian Parenti, associate professor of economics at John Jay College in New York City. ...

"This idea is reinforced by author Rebecca Solnit in her landmark book, “A Paradise Built in Hell,” in which she explains that, “in the wake of an earthquake, a bombing, or a major storm, most people are altruistic, urgently engaged in caring for themselves and those around them, strangers and neighbors as well as friends and loved ones.”

Okay, it does happen in Siege of Leningrad conditions where people will murder for a ration card, but even then it was not something people were just going around and doing.

Yeah I was trying to reason about the affects of speculation but it turns out that of course there’s plenty of research on the topic, and the affects are broad and complex. Unfortunately I don’t have time to read this right now but you may find it interesting:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2405851320300258

For public housing, there is also the approach taken by Singapore. This article discusses both and may interest you. What I think matters most is we understand that it is possible to have more people in stable affordable housing, and we accept nothing less.

https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore/

I don’t know where you got this, but there have been countless crises in history, and actually people pull together. They don’t turn into thrill kill cannibals like survivalist publications say. That isn’t to say there aren’t some bad actors, but let’s not over blow this.

Who is hoarding groceries and vaccines? The stores are full. Vaccines are plentiful. The US even gave Canada a bunch of AstraZeneca doses recently.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-stress-of-disaster-brings-people-together/

https://www.shareable.net/disaster-collectivism-how-communities-rise-together-to-respond-to-crises/