> Did I want to drive or endure the stench of the hoards of the unwashed on public transportation? It never even occurred to me to ask for, much less demand quality and affordable housing where it was heavily in demand. I suppose if I had, I knew the sort of reply I would get.

> But if they have to endure spending two hours on a bus each morning to commute to work, better them than me. And I expect as they find more lucrative work closer to home for them to take it. Jack up the costs of goods and services for me. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

How can you complain about the exact quality of life issues that a chronic housing shortage causes in the same breath that you oppose fixing that same shortage? How can you argue for people to make hard sacrifices as some kind of shitty performance art about how things are “supposed” to work, when zoning is an artificial distortion creating unnatural housing conditions to begin with? How can you say “better them than me” when the point of legalizing conversions to MMH is that no one has to lose?

> I have all the sympathy in the world for the working poor you just described, but were too cowardly to call them. I think they deserve social assistance. Like free healthcare, like a livable minimum wage, and many other progressive entitlements.

Those things which we both think they deserve are not what is on the table before us today and neither of us has the power to fiat them into being so I frankly do not care. The imminent possibility of legalizing MMH is what’s real. Arlington can be better and the means to accomplish that is staring us all in the face. But instead you throw this literal “I don’t hate the poors BUT” nonsense at me and call me the coward.

SFH-exclusive zoning in a place that has the jobs and transit options that working people need is a ridiculous handout to the people who need it the least. Rich asshole NIMBYs or no, I’ll stick with the side trying to do some good.