‘Of course I’m the underdog’: the British former spin doctor trying to turn California red
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/30/california-governor-steve-hilton-raceOpen linkView original on programming.devSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on programming.devhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/30/california-governor-steve-hilton-raceOpen linkView original on programming.dev
8 replies
Fake news, this guy was never a member of the Spin Doctors.
Usually candidates come up with at least somewhat viable promises on the campaign trail. His are just idiotic, and reek of someone who knows absolutely nothing about his prospective constituency.
Completely impractical, and at least partially running of a trope (the CA DMV is horribly inefficient) that's be wrong for about 20 years.
This is something he cannot influence at all. It's a completely bullshit empty promise.
I can't really comment on this one because I don't know enough about education in LA. But are there not enough business schools in LA? How will this be funded? Is this a huge educational decided?
Setting up brand new cities requires a ridiculous amount of infrastructure planning, legal wrangling, and time. And for what? Legislation to change housing requirements would be more practical, and redistricting/adapting all the empty commercial buildings - while still very expensive - would still be cheaper and easier than constructing brand new cities from nothing.
Company towns
Building a new city would be a way around NIMBYism but I'd make one big one, probably next to kings-tulare station on CA HSR instead of 58 small ones. You'd have to bootstrap a local economy and make sire the starter urban planning puts it on a fundamentally diffrent track than other California cities
Of course, you could also just take away local control of zoning from cities, make it a state level responcibility by state constutional amendment, and directly force existing cities to densify
Zoning isn't the main factor preventing dense cities, the fact the cities don't invest in what it takes to build the infrastructure, which is largely because taxes are too low.
Also letting the market build whatever is lowest risk is the main factor behind SFHs not zoning.
Dude, it's literally illegal to build apartments on most urban land
States, including California have gotten rid of single family zoning and passed huge zoning reform bills and the outcome has generally been a minimal increase in what gets built.
Yes zoning reform is good, but it isn't going to create dense cities, dense cities require government spending & active planning, especially when a lack of regulations make It easy (and low risk) to simply sprawl. In the absence of green belt style regulation that forces European cities to densify, US only has dense cities where they were built before cars or where geography prevents sprawl, simply allowing developers to choose if they sprawl (low risk) or not isn't enough.
Honestly, as a Californian, I haven't heard anything from either candidate. I live in a blue neighborhood, so it's possible they assume I'm already going to vote one way. But everyone has to earn my vote.