alt Hacker News>I would say aversion to allowing economic growth is the true cause of inequality.
People say that right up until someone wants to do something and then it's all "not in my back yard" and "won't somebody think of Alex Jones and his gay frogs" or whatever their line is.
I'd say nobody is willing to put their money where their mouth is but it's not money. They'd made more money with growth. It's speculative bullshit "what ifs" that could be mopped up easily if they happened. The problem is people's beliefs, ideology, religion, whatever you want to call it.
I think the direction goes the other way, people are NIMBYs so they come up with reasons to justify why it's OK to block other people from living close to them.
The idea "oh but a richer person than me benefits" becomes the reason for blocking housing, eliding the fact that a poorer person benefits, the true thing the NIMBYs try to prevent.
At least, that's true in my area. People that already have housing, are comfortable, start to rail against all this economic growth and say that we should block all change to buildings to prevent it.
Anybody who is actually serious about providing more opportunity to those with less realized that we need more housing, where the jobs are. It's the homeowners and well-established that pursue degrowth and austerity.