53 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Improving walkability cost me an election
In 2019 something similar happened in Eagle, Idaho - a small and wealthy suburb to Boise. Eagle is almost exclusively large estate lot detached single family housing, tiny cute downtown, bordered at the edges of town by two huge stroads. Eagle has been growing like crazy and mostly wealthy, retired Californians moving there.
The incumbent mayor and council at the time started advocating for a few "dense" housing projects near downtown, more bike infrastructure, etc. Small projects with the idea Eagle needed to stop sprawling and build more densely in the future.
The mayor was voted out, as well as most of council - the newly elected mayor and council ran almost entirely on a pro-sprawl, anti-density campaign.
Comment by quikmantx at 12/11/2024 at 05:40 UTC
4 upvotes, 2 direct replies
The problem is that when people think or hear "more density" they quickly associate it with higher cost of living and inconvenience to their existing lifestyle. They aren't exactly wrong in this aspect.
Voters are concerned about their family, income, and preferred lifestyle. It's going to take a lot of convincing that more density is an overall good thing when people like the way it is.