7 ms·

First and foremost, we need to abolish the laws that caused this all to happen. Yes, that’s right – all of this was required to happen, by law. Many peopl

First and foremost, we need to abolish the laws that caused this all to happen. Yes, that’s right – all of this was required to happen, by law. Many people think that sprawl is a free market phenomenon, and they are exactly wrong. Sprawl is caused by the following policies – I call these Sprawl Laws; you can find them for yourself in your local city code (for the most succinct explanation, see this paper[1]): * Zoning * Setbacks * Minimum parking requirements * Minimum lot sizes * Maximum units per lot * Minimum road widths Add school district zoning into the mix, and you have the full recipe for where our cities are today. [1] http://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1434&context=scholarlyworks http://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...

avar 10y ago
Very pertinent previous HN discussion about the difference between Japanese and US zoning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540845
rayiner 10y ago
It's interesting that some of the most charming neighborhoods in the country (e.g. Chelsea in New York, DuPont in D.C.) were built before all that crap. You'd never build a "modern city" like Philadelphia, with its narrow one-way streets, lack of parking, and commercial and retail mish-mashed together. But most of the rest of the country feels dead in comparison.
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  Make that the world. At least in Stockholm all the most desirable locations would be illegal to build today for dozens of reasons. Meanwhile, newly built areas range from awful to tolerable.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    > You'd never build a "modern city" like Philadelphia, with its narrow one-way streets, lack of parking, and commercial and retail mish-mashed together. And yet, that’s what’s being built in most of europe. Make streets smaller, remove parking, build mixed use buildings. [1] http://www.kn-online.de/var/storage/images/kn/news/nachrichten-aus-kiel/bauherren-preis-2015-gestaltungswille-auf-engstem-raum/396565854-1-ger-DE/Gestaltungswille-auf-engstem-Raum_gallerylarge.jpg http://www.kn-online.de/var/storage/images/kn/news/nachricht... [2] http://abload.de/img/img_1863whsfj.jpg http://abload.de/img/img_1863whsfj.jpg [3] http://www.schlossquartier-kiel.de/fileadmin/images/01.jpg http://www.schlossquartier-kiel.de/fileadmin/images/01.jpg Be it one-lane roads, be it building mixed use buildings, etc – these projects are all either built this year, or still under construction. It’s not a global issue, definitely more of a US issue.
  - ars 10y ago
    > Make that the world. Please don't!!! I stay far far far away from the dense cities. I can't stand those places. I'm quite happy with the way in the US you can pick where you want to live - anything from superdense, to urban, to suburban, to rural. Whatever you like, there's a city that will match you. Even better is how in some cities there is a mix, all within 50 miles of each other you have all the types. You get the benefit of business city center without actually having to live there.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - mabbo 10y ago
      That's fine, so long as you're willing to pay for your infrastructure. Low-density suburbs with full utilities, storm sewer, etc, must have it's cost paid for by those who choose to live that lifestyle. Those of us living 27 stories up are more efficient and shouldn't have to pay for your roads.
      - chrismcb 10y ago
        Because you grow crops on the roof, weave cotton in the basement, and build for furniture on another for? Roads are used for more than moving people around, they also move good around,which almost everyone partakes.
        icebraining 10y ago
        People growing food and making goods should embedded the cost of those roads in the prices of their products.
        MagnumOpus 10y ago
        A vanishingly small proportion of suburbanites farms, weaves or works in furniture factories. Indeed I wouldn't be amazed if more apartment-dwellers are engaged in those activities than McMansionites.
        rubber_duck 10y ago
- ecopoesis 10y ago
  Some places are building this. Assembly Row in Somerville is a prime example. Usually it's called transit oriented planning.
  - asmithmd1 10y ago
    I have walked around assembly row and it isn't terrible but it certainly doesn't feel like downtown Boston. Check out what standing at the intersection of Grand Union Blvd and Artisan Way feels like: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3948862,-71.081131,3a,75y,117.79h,86.06t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sV_lg0VZpTEZqZ_VnM6JsAg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3948862,-71.081131,3a,75y,11...
    - djrogers 10y ago
      >I have walked around assembly row and it isn't terrible but it certainly doesn't feel like downtown Boston. A new development shouldn't feel like the downtown from one of the oldest cities in the country. Age, architecture, construction materials, land and building re-use, and about a thousand other things can't be faked. That doesn't mean they didn't build with these principles in mind.
    - drivers99 10y ago
      So one side of the street is big box stored with giant parking lots, and the other side is parking garages with 1st floor businesses. Looks 1000% for cars and not transit.
      - ghaff 10y ago
        I wouldn't conclude much from that development which is largely a retail and restaurant development in a long rundown industrial area (former Ford plant). [1] It was basically cut off from most of Sommerville by highways. There was long a plan to put an Ikea there but there was a lot of pushback from various groups and Ikea eventually walked. Much of Sommerville away from the highways is essentially a gentrifying, historically somewhat downmarket, version of Cambridge. Generally low-rise houses and some condo complexes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_Square https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_Square
- ars 10y ago
  > charming neighborhoods in the country (e.g. Chelsea in New York That's charming to you???? Looking at photos of it gives me the creeps. How can people stand to live in places like that? > But most of the rest of the country feels dead in comparison. ????? The rest of the country feels open and alive, not crowded and oppressive. I've very glad that in the US you can pick and choose what you like, and it's not all a monoculture. You live in a density you like and I'll live in one I like. But please don't go out and advocate for more of what you like while pretending other people's desires are somehow "bad".
  - rayiner 10y ago
    I think "desire" has little to do with it. Right now in my age demographic tons of friends are gnashing their teeth because "public transit" and "decent schools" are apparently incompatible among American urban planners. And suburban sprawl is hardly "open and alive." Here in NoVA it's just mile after mile of asphalt and concrete with most of the greenery strategically planted as highway noise breaks and to separate subdivisions. If you want to see "open and alive" go to cities in Europe. If you start driving out of Amsterdam, it's crazy how quickly you're in the middle of dairy farms.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      Here in NoVA... It's typical of people from both the East Coast and West Coast to think their experiences are representative of the whole country... Just like it's silly for me to say everyone from the coasts ignores the middle, it's silly for you to imagine that everywhere is like Northern Virginia.
      - cjslep 10y ago
        > It's typical of people from both the East Coast and West Coast to think their experiences are representative of the whole country... I think you have good intentions, but this comes across as pretty insensitive. Rayiner isn't saying every corner of the USA is sprawling suburbia; only that the huge NoVA sprawl outside of D.C. contributes against the average sprawling suburbia from being considered "open and alive". It's a debatable point without labeling huge groups of people.
- drumdance 10y ago
  I live in a neighborhood Denver where many of the houses were built in the 1880s and 90s and it's utterly charming. Houses of various sizes and shapes, some single-family, some multi-tennant. It's even more interesting than the Chicago neighborhood where I lived in the nineties (and which also dated from the late 1800s).
- zardo 10y ago
  It was supposed to be one farm per block. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/penn/pnplan.html http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/penn/pnplan.html
- groby_b 10y ago
  Of course, the issue is not zoning laws, but bad zoning laws. European zoning laws are mostly concerned with actual urban planning. US zoning laws are focused on maintaining property values. Read e.g. "Zoned in the USA"[1] for a nice introduction to the topic. [1]http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100178220 http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=8014010017822...
  - eru 10y ago
    Maintaining property values by eg keeping out poor people.
- rahimnathwani 10y ago
  For a year in 2003-4, I lived in a newly-built (maybe 3 years old?) rented apartment near the center of Oxford (right next to the railway station). The developer had only been allowed to include 8 parking spaces (between 50-100 flats). Nearby street parking was all resident-permit-only, and residents of these newly-built flats were not eligible to get residents' permits for any street parking. This prevented anyone living in any of those flats from owning a car without serious hassle or cost. I owned a car at the time, so didn't like it. In retrospect, it seems like a great policy: allow new housing to be built, but don't externalise the costs of parking cars.
emodendroket 10y ago
If that's what it takes I vote for the tax increase
armenarmen 10y ago
Some of the logic behind the incentivization of all this was to make the US less vulnerable to nuclear attack during the Cold War. Basically it would be harder to kill all of us if we were more spread out. http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/Cold.War.Urban.Vulnerability.pdf http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/Cold.War.Urban.Vulnerab...
gumby 10y ago
It's not as clear cut as you say. Houston is minimal for its minimal/nonexistant zoning rules such as you say and it's also a massive sprawl.
- justizin 10y ago
  How dare you challenge an armchair city planner!
- abfan1127 10y ago
  just because you eliminate the restrictions, doesn't mean the population will behave outside of the previous restrictions.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Enforced zoning is just one of the cited laws encouraging sprawl. Houston still has many others: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=837244 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=837244 http://www.freepresshouston.com/parking-wars/ http://www.freepresshouston.com/parking-wars/ http://marketurbanism.com/2008/12/10/is-houston-really-unplanned/ http://marketurbanism.com/2008/12/10/is-houston-really-unpla...
- Wile_E_Quixote 10y ago
  What Houston lacks in zoning laws, it makes up for with many, if not most, neighborhoods being "deed restricted" communities. For residents, this is effectively the same as zoning. From the city website (http://www.houstontx.gov/legal/deed.html http://www.houstontx.gov/legal/deed.html): "Restrictions mean limitations that: -Affect the use to which real property may be put; -Fix the distance that a structure must be set back from property lines, street lines, or lot lines; -Affect the size of a lot or the size, type and number of structures that may be built on the lot; -Regulate orientation of a structure; or -Regulate certain fences requiring a building permit."
ngould 10y ago
I'm surprised you didn't mention the mortgage interest tax deduction as a contributor to sprawl. I.e. federally subsidized home ownership. Talk about reasons to ditch your downtown rental and borrow against a grassy slice of suburban land. http://freakonomics.com/2012/06/29/homeownership-and-suburban-sprawl/ http://freakonomics.com/2012/06/29/homeownership-and-suburba...
- WalterSear 10y ago
  > federally subsidized home ownership. More like federally subsidized mortgage lending. It's like health insurance or any other market with a locked-in consumer base: putting more money the demand side en masse doesn't improve supply, it just increases the prices.
Shivetya 10y ago
Well when those who have influence to block new higher density housing to be built inside of city limits and lower prices what other expected outcome could there be? It is obvious there are some out there who would live in the city provided they could find a place they felt was worth the cost, provided the safety they require, and access to amenities they desire. However many cities have rule after rule to prevent such from being built or load on requires that blow the cost out by requiring specific number of low cost units forcing all other units up in price.
drumdance 10y ago
Houston.
jellicle 10y ago
Most "sprawl" is new developments built in places where there are none of these zoning laws - no zoning, no setbacks, no parking requirements, nothing of that sort. After the sprawl is built, sometimes those rules are added, to keep it sprawly. But no, zoning does not cause sprawl. Sprawl is farmland or forest land that has to be rezoned to be residential at all. Since you're far out from "the city", the property must be attractive to buyers to induce them to live there. Since land is cheap there, this inducement takes the form of large houses and expansive stretches of land. If you built tiny, expensive, inner-city studio apartments that were ALSO 60 minutes away from "the city", who would buy them? > Many people think that sprawl is a free market phenomenon, and they are exactly wrong. You misspelled "exactly right".
- tamana 10y ago
  People but their exurban houses, forgetting that everyone else also buys an exurban house and they don't get the idyllic pastoral life they imagined. Instead they sit parked on the highway.
burfog 10y ago
Sometimes these things get too extreme, but they do have valid reasons. Zoning should be obvious. Do you mind if I build a solid rocket factory next to your house, complete with test stand and storage of enough ammonium perchlorate to register on the Richter scale if it goes boom? (see the PEPCON disaster, which was 3 to 3.5 on the Richter scale) Setbacks, minimum lot sizes, and maximum units per lot are needed for drainage. It costs lots more money to run storm drains. Setback requirements keep your neighbors from blocking your view. Suppose you buy a house in a normal suburban place, 100 feet back from the road. Your neighbors decide to extend their houses or build new ones, going right up to the street. You'd be pissed that they blocked off most of your light. Manhatten even has similar requirements for skyscrapers, imposed after one wise guy built right up to the street and blocked out the Sun. Minimum parking requirements stop all sorts of evil and unproductive behavior. In places without enough parking, much of the traffic is people driving around and around in search of parking. People hesitate to leave a good parking space. People doing business or living at one property will swipe the parking in front of a different property. Because of this swiping behavior, there is a huge disincentive to provide any parking at all. Minimum road widths reduce driver stress. That stress increases heart attacks, divorce, and violence. Minimum road widths reduce fender-bender damage. Minimum road widths allow the movement of moving trucks, utility trucks, fire trucks, and garbage trucks.
- graeme 10y ago
  If this is true, why do cities built precar work? I live in a neighbourhood in montreal where: * There are no rocket factories, yet * There are some setbacks but not massive ones. They're half the size of a comparable neighbourhood in Toronto. We don't flood. * Nobody's view is blocked * Most people walk, rather than drive. There's not excessive car circulation compared to other neighborhoods. * People are significantly more relaxed, and healthier, because they can walk rather than drive. Plateau mont royal. Have a look at the place on Google maps. If we could clone this neighborhood and build it around the USA, developers would make trillions. It's very dense, yet families live here. Also: How do we make a list on Hacker News? I've never figured this out.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
technofiend 10y ago
Houston is an interesting counterpoint to your argument that zoning and taxes caused sprawl because what motivated Houston to exercise nearly unlimited annexation powers was racially motivated flight of the voter base. The result is 640 square miles of sprawl and much like Detroit Houston has no choice now but to cut services and raise taxes to maintain the infrastructure or retract city limits. You can imagine which they chose.

avar 10y ago

Very pertinent previous HN discussion about the difference between Japanese and US zoning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540845

rayiner 10y ago

It's interesting that some of the most charming neighborhoods in the country (e.g. Chelsea in New York, DuPont in D.C.) were built before all that crap. You'd never build a "modern city" like Philadelphia, with its narrow one-way streets, lack of parking, and commercial and retail mish-mashed together. But most of the rest of the country feels dead in comparison.

BurningFrog 10y ago
Make that the world. At least in Stockholm all the most desirable locations would be illegal to build today for dozens of reasons. Meanwhile, newly built areas range from awful to tolerable.
- kuschku 10y ago
  > You'd never build a "modern city" like Philadelphia, with its narrow one-way streets, lack of parking, and commercial and retail mish-mashed together. And yet, that’s what’s being built in most of europe. Make streets smaller, remove parking, build mixed use buildings. [1] http://www.kn-online.de/var/storage/images/kn/news/nachrichten-aus-kiel/bauherren-preis-2015-gestaltungswille-auf-engstem-raum/396565854-1-ger-DE/Gestaltungswille-auf-engstem-Raum_gallerylarge.jpg http://www.kn-online.de/var/storage/images/kn/news/nachricht... [2] http://abload.de/img/img_1863whsfj.jpg http://abload.de/img/img_1863whsfj.jpg [3] http://www.schlossquartier-kiel.de/fileadmin/images/01.jpg http://www.schlossquartier-kiel.de/fileadmin/images/01.jpg Be it one-lane roads, be it building mixed use buildings, etc – these projects are all either built this year, or still under construction. It’s not a global issue, definitely more of a US issue.
- ars 10y ago
  > Make that the world. Please don't!!! I stay far far far away from the dense cities. I can't stand those places. I'm quite happy with the way in the US you can pick where you want to live - anything from superdense, to urban, to suburban, to rural. Whatever you like, there's a city that will match you. Even better is how in some cities there is a mix, all within 50 miles of each other you have all the types. You get the benefit of business city center without actually having to live there.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - mabbo 10y ago
    That's fine, so long as you're willing to pay for your infrastructure. Low-density suburbs with full utilities, storm sewer, etc, must have it's cost paid for by those who choose to live that lifestyle. Those of us living 27 stories up are more efficient and shouldn't have to pay for your roads.
    - chrismcb 10y ago
      Because you grow crops on the roof, weave cotton in the basement, and build for furniture on another for? Roads are used for more than moving people around, they also move good around,which almost everyone partakes.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        People growing food and making goods should embedded the cost of those roads in the prices of their products.
      - MagnumOpus 10y ago
        A vanishingly small proportion of suburbanites farms, weaves or works in furniture factories. Indeed I wouldn't be amazed if more apartment-dwellers are engaged in those activities than McMansionites.
      - rubber_duck 10y ago
ecopoesis 10y ago
Some places are building this. Assembly Row in Somerville is a prime example. Usually it's called transit oriented planning.
- asmithmd1 10y ago
  I have walked around assembly row and it isn't terrible but it certainly doesn't feel like downtown Boston. Check out what standing at the intersection of Grand Union Blvd and Artisan Way feels like: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3948862,-71.081131,3a,75y,117.79h,86.06t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sV_lg0VZpTEZqZ_VnM6JsAg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3948862,-71.081131,3a,75y,11...
  - djrogers 10y ago
    >I have walked around assembly row and it isn't terrible but it certainly doesn't feel like downtown Boston. A new development shouldn't feel like the downtown from one of the oldest cities in the country. Age, architecture, construction materials, land and building re-use, and about a thousand other things can't be faked. That doesn't mean they didn't build with these principles in mind.
  - drivers99 10y ago
    So one side of the street is big box stored with giant parking lots, and the other side is parking garages with 1st floor businesses. Looks 1000% for cars and not transit.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      I wouldn't conclude much from that development which is largely a retail and restaurant development in a long rundown industrial area (former Ford plant). [1] It was basically cut off from most of Sommerville by highways. There was long a plan to put an Ikea there but there was a lot of pushback from various groups and Ikea eventually walked. Much of Sommerville away from the highways is essentially a gentrifying, historically somewhat downmarket, version of Cambridge. Generally low-rise houses and some condo complexes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_Square https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_Square
ars 10y ago
> charming neighborhoods in the country (e.g. Chelsea in New York That's charming to you???? Looking at photos of it gives me the creeps. How can people stand to live in places like that? > But most of the rest of the country feels dead in comparison. ????? The rest of the country feels open and alive, not crowded and oppressive. I've very glad that in the US you can pick and choose what you like, and it's not all a monoculture. You live in a density you like and I'll live in one I like. But please don't go out and advocate for more of what you like while pretending other people's desires are somehow "bad".
- rayiner 10y ago
  I think "desire" has little to do with it. Right now in my age demographic tons of friends are gnashing their teeth because "public transit" and "decent schools" are apparently incompatible among American urban planners. And suburban sprawl is hardly "open and alive." Here in NoVA it's just mile after mile of asphalt and concrete with most of the greenery strategically planted as highway noise breaks and to separate subdivisions. If you want to see "open and alive" go to cities in Europe. If you start driving out of Amsterdam, it's crazy how quickly you're in the middle of dairy farms.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    Here in NoVA... It's typical of people from both the East Coast and West Coast to think their experiences are representative of the whole country... Just like it's silly for me to say everyone from the coasts ignores the middle, it's silly for you to imagine that everywhere is like Northern Virginia.
    - cjslep 10y ago
      > It's typical of people from both the East Coast and West Coast to think their experiences are representative of the whole country... I think you have good intentions, but this comes across as pretty insensitive. Rayiner isn't saying every corner of the USA is sprawling suburbia; only that the huge NoVA sprawl outside of D.C. contributes against the average sprawling suburbia from being considered "open and alive". It's a debatable point without labeling huge groups of people.
drumdance 10y ago
I live in a neighborhood Denver where many of the houses were built in the 1880s and 90s and it's utterly charming. Houses of various sizes and shapes, some single-family, some multi-tennant. It's even more interesting than the Chicago neighborhood where I lived in the nineties (and which also dated from the late 1800s).
zardo 10y ago
It was supposed to be one farm per block. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/penn/pnplan.html http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/penn/pnplan.html
groby_b 10y ago
Of course, the issue is not zoning laws, but bad zoning laws. European zoning laws are mostly concerned with actual urban planning. US zoning laws are focused on maintaining property values. Read e.g. "Zoned in the USA"[1] for a nice introduction to the topic. [1]http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100178220 http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=8014010017822...
- eru 10y ago
  Maintaining property values by eg keeping out poor people.
rahimnathwani 10y ago
For a year in 2003-4, I lived in a newly-built (maybe 3 years old?) rented apartment near the center of Oxford (right next to the railway station). The developer had only been allowed to include 8 parking spaces (between 50-100 flats). Nearby street parking was all resident-permit-only, and residents of these newly-built flats were not eligible to get residents' permits for any street parking. This prevented anyone living in any of those flats from owning a car without serious hassle or cost. I owned a car at the time, so didn't like it. In retrospect, it seems like a great policy: allow new housing to be built, but don't externalise the costs of parking cars.

emodendroket 10y ago

If that's what it takes I vote for the tax increase

armenarmen 10y ago

Some of the logic behind the incentivization of all this was to make the US less vulnerable to nuclear attack during the Cold War. Basically it would be harder to kill all of us if we were more spread out. http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/Cold.War.Urban.Vulnerability.pdf http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/Cold.War.Urban.Vulnerab...

gumby 10y ago

It's not as clear cut as you say. Houston is minimal for its minimal/nonexistant zoning rules such as you say and it's also a massive sprawl.

justizin 10y ago
How dare you challenge an armchair city planner!
abfan1127 10y ago
just because you eliminate the restrictions, doesn't mean the population will behave outside of the previous restrictions.
icebraining 10y ago
Enforced zoning is just one of the cited laws encouraging sprawl. Houston still has many others: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=837244 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=837244 http://www.freepresshouston.com/parking-wars/ http://www.freepresshouston.com/parking-wars/ http://marketurbanism.com/2008/12/10/is-houston-really-unplanned/ http://marketurbanism.com/2008/12/10/is-houston-really-unpla...
Wile_E_Quixote 10y ago
What Houston lacks in zoning laws, it makes up for with many, if not most, neighborhoods being "deed restricted" communities. For residents, this is effectively the same as zoning. From the city website (http://www.houstontx.gov/legal/deed.html http://www.houstontx.gov/legal/deed.html): "Restrictions mean limitations that: -Affect the use to which real property may be put; -Fix the distance that a structure must be set back from property lines, street lines, or lot lines; -Affect the size of a lot or the size, type and number of structures that may be built on the lot; -Regulate orientation of a structure; or -Regulate certain fences requiring a building permit."

ngould 10y ago

I'm surprised you didn't mention the mortgage interest tax deduction as a contributor to sprawl. I.e. federally subsidized home ownership. Talk about reasons to ditch your downtown rental and borrow against a grassy slice of suburban land. http://freakonomics.com/2012/06/29/homeownership-and-suburban-sprawl/ http://freakonomics.com/2012/06/29/homeownership-and-suburba...

WalterSear 10y ago
> federally subsidized home ownership. More like federally subsidized mortgage lending. It's like health insurance or any other market with a locked-in consumer base: putting more money the demand side en masse doesn't improve supply, it just increases the prices.

Shivetya 10y ago

Well when those who have influence to block new higher density housing to be built inside of city limits and lower prices what other expected outcome could there be? It is obvious there are some out there who would live in the city provided they could find a place they felt was worth the cost, provided the safety they require, and access to amenities they desire. However many cities have rule after rule to prevent such from being built or load on requires that blow the cost out by requiring specific number of low cost units forcing all other units up in price.

drumdance 10y ago

Houston.

jellicle 10y ago

Most "sprawl" is new developments built in places where there are none of these zoning laws - no zoning, no setbacks, no parking requirements, nothing of that sort. After the sprawl is built, sometimes those rules are added, to keep it sprawly. But no, zoning does not cause sprawl. Sprawl is farmland or forest land that has to be rezoned to be residential at all. Since you're far out from "the city", the property must be attractive to buyers to induce them to live there. Since land is cheap there, this inducement takes the form of large houses and expansive stretches of land. If you built tiny, expensive, inner-city studio apartments that were ALSO 60 minutes away from "the city", who would buy them? > Many people think that sprawl is a free market phenomenon, and they are exactly wrong. You misspelled "exactly right".

tamana 10y ago
People but their exurban houses, forgetting that everyone else also buys an exurban house and they don't get the idyllic pastoral life they imagined. Instead they sit parked on the highway.

burfog 10y ago

Sometimes these things get too extreme, but they do have valid reasons. Zoning should be obvious. Do you mind if I build a solid rocket factory next to your house, complete with test stand and storage of enough ammonium perchlorate to register on the Richter scale if it goes boom? (see the PEPCON disaster, which was 3 to 3.5 on the Richter scale) Setbacks, minimum lot sizes, and maximum units per lot are needed for drainage. It costs lots more money to run storm drains. Setback requirements keep your neighbors from blocking your view. Suppose you buy a house in a normal suburban place, 100 feet back from the road. Your neighbors decide to extend their houses or build new ones, going right up to the street. You'd be pissed that they blocked off most of your light. Manhatten even has similar requirements for skyscrapers, imposed after one wise guy built right up to the street and blocked out the Sun. Minimum parking requirements stop all sorts of evil and unproductive behavior. In places without enough parking, much of the traffic is people driving around and around in search of parking. People hesitate to leave a good parking space. People doing business or living at one property will swipe the parking in front of a different property. Because of this swiping behavior, there is a huge disincentive to provide any parking at all. Minimum road widths reduce driver stress. That stress increases heart attacks, divorce, and violence. Minimum road widths reduce fender-bender damage. Minimum road widths allow the movement of moving trucks, utility trucks, fire trucks, and garbage trucks.

graeme 10y ago
If this is true, why do cities built precar work? I live in a neighbourhood in montreal where: * There are no rocket factories, yet * There are some setbacks but not massive ones. They're half the size of a comparable neighbourhood in Toronto. We don't flood. * Nobody's view is blocked * Most people walk, rather than drive. There's not excessive car circulation compared to other neighborhoods. * People are significantly more relaxed, and healthier, because they can walk rather than drive. Plateau mont royal. Have a look at the place on Google maps. If we could clone this neighborhood and build it around the USA, developers would make trillions. It's very dense, yet families live here. Also: How do we make a list on Hacker News? I've never figured this out.
- ptaipale 10y ago

technofiend 10y ago

Houston is an interesting counterpoint to your argument that zoning and taxes caused sprawl because what motivated Houston to exercise nearly unlimited annexation powers was racially motivated flight of the voter base. The result is 640 square miles of sprawl and much like Detroit Houston has no choice now but to cut services and raise taxes to maintain the infrastructure or retract city limits. You can imagine which they chose.