The hardest part about getting anything done in America is that every decision has to be approved by people who aren’t going to use the solution anyway.

School funding is decided by people who either don’t have school-aged children or who send their kids to private schools. Social Security laws – which only change to affect future generations of retirees, not current and soon-to retirees – are decided by retirees.

And so, the ability to put up large apartment complexes (and let’s make them nicer and include proper green space and all that) is decided by people who won’t live there and who aren’t going to walk, bike, or drive to the place where we would build the goddamn housing in the first place.

That’s the part that riles me up the most: the number of people who will vote to stop someone else from getting something they need, because the voter doesn’t agree with the choice or the outcome. Like, if we could affordably build houses for everyone, Karen P Asshat would vote yes. But ugly apartments? With all the apartment people living there? She votes no.

I’ve been in politics 35 years now and i have no answer for how to fix that. America is a nation of cockblockers, fundamentally.