6 ms·

No, markets are a great way of finding what makes the most money for those who build the stores. That may be "the best" solution that is also aligned with the i

by st3v3r 10y ago

No, markets are a great way of finding what makes the most money for those who build the stores. That may be "the best" solution that is also aligned with the interests of the people who live there, but it might not be.

davidw 10y ago
Central planning has been a colossal failure both in terms of the economy at large, and in terms of urban planning. If someone can make money by building a store, that's great, what's wrong with it? Zoning should be about keeping truly noxious activities away from residential areas, not about keeping a corner store away from where people could possibly walk to it.
- mikestew 10y ago
  Ah, I took a different take on your original post. I'll leave my original reply, as I still agree with the point, but I see where you're going with this and heartily agree. One of my main complaints with where I live is that it's a round-trip hour to walk to any store, yet $DEITY forbid that we put a corner store anywhere in my neighborhood lest a developer be prevented from plopping another house on that plot.
  - davidw 10y ago
    Yeah, my point is that it's impossible to say a priori what the mix of stores and single family houses and apartments and barber shops and other things should be, and where they should all be located. Markets are a good way of dealing with complex problems like that. They're not perfect, but better than the alternatives.
  - potatolicious 10y ago
    Agree in general - but keep in mind that $DEITY is often your neighbors. Developers generally aren't the ones pushing for restrictive zoning laws, residents are. For decades Americans have lived under the impression that businesses near homes is somehow a corrupting influence, and that putting businesses far from homes is somehow a feature and not a bug. The current suburban landscape in America is the result of both overzealous urban planners, too eager to create a magnum opus of central planning, and the residents who eagerly bought into the concept believing that the best life is a carefully manicured, highly restrictive one. This is also why I'm skeptical of YC's thing here - this smells lot like how these misadventures in central planning have begun in the past. Sam's thought elsewhere about relocating startups to help bootstrap the new city's economy is also a bit disconcerting - these exist, they're called company towns, and they tend to be economically fragile (all non-diverse economies are) and good examples of central planning run amok. I sincerely hope anyone applying to this is very well versed in urban planning and its history world-wide, because there have been many misadventures in planning, and those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
    - davidw 10y ago
      > I sincerely hope anyone applying to this is very well versed in urban planning and its history world-wide, because there have been many misadventures in planning, and those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. I think this is one of the most insightful comments here vis a vis YC's plans, and it's one of the reasons I'm in the "markets" camp. I know I'd prefer to see more mixed-use, bike/pedestrian friendly cities, but ultimately I'm wary of even my own "plans" and think the freedom to have people doing different things, and let cities evolve naturally beats even the best of plans.
      - potatolicious 10y ago
        It's a tricky balance to be certain. I grew up in an Asian country with extremely laissez-faire regulations and the urban landscape was a bit hellish. Very, very economically efficient with huge economic diversity and competition, but nonetheless unpleasant (and unsafe!) in many ways. Complete freedom is likely not the right answer, but neither is the extremely prescriptive type of planning that has dominated American cities since the 50s, the type that Jane Jacobs rails against in her famous book. Oddly enough we were really good at this between the late 1800s and early 1900s. The places in America that people continue to enjoy being (and now have become enormously unaffordable) have almost all come of age in that era. I'm still not entirely sure what the x-factor was, but part of it was probably a more "gardener/enabler" philosophy to urban planning than the "prescriptivist/masterpiece" thought that dominates now. Planning in many places in that era was more about setting the foundations for the market to grow productively, rather than monumental projects designed to micromanage the conditions of every day life. See for example the Commissioner's Plan of 1811 in NYC.
        davidw 10y ago
        Whereabouts in Asia? That's an interesting counterpoint and example. I agree with you completely: I'm not a 'markets' guy because I think they're the answer to all problems all the time, but because I think in this case we could use more of them.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  "If someone can make money by building a store, that's great, what's wrong with it?" There can be plenty of things wrong with it. I don't subscribe to the idea that whatever makes money is instantly the best thing. And I never said that I want to keep corner stores away from where people could walk to it. I said that leaving everything up to the "free market" doesn't always yield the best solution for everyone. It only yields the most profitable solution for those with the money.
  - davidw 10y ago
    > And I never said that I want to keep corner stores away from where people could walk to it. That's currently what we have; nothing at all resembling a free market where you can buy a piece of property and more or less do what you want with it. The rules and regulations in place are absolutely about enshrining the car-centric city. With a more market-oriented solution, some people could have their "burbs" and others could have other kinds of housing and neighborhoods.
    - st3v3r 10y ago
      I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. A market based solution has no reassurance whatsoever that this would happen. As I said, markets only work to find the solution that makes more money for those with capital. That does not mean that it will be the best solution for those that actually live there. It's just as likely that a piece of property would be turned into a trash dump or strip club than it would be turned into a grocery market.
- pinaceae 10y ago
  how do you build roads without central planning?
  - davidw 10y ago
    You could just build a big grid and let it evolve from there. I'm not talking about "libertopia" here, so yeah, I think government has a role. Just that that role in terms of zoning should be radically shrunk.
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  The rules don't come about because someone wants to stop a corner store from being built in their neighborhood. They want to stop the Walmart or the Lowe's or the strip mall. In addition to added traffic, you're now encouraging people from outside the neighborhood to come in, with the attendant risks. The net often gets cast too widely though - so that the corners stores can't be built either. I live in a quiet mostly rural neighborhood. I wouldn't object to a corner store replacing the nearest house. I would object to the house and all of its land getting cleared to drop a home depot in. Unfortunately, zoning regulations prohibit both - as if there were no difference between them.
- mempko 10y ago
  The alternative to central planning does not have to be markets. There are other forms of decentralized decision making.

by st3v3r 10y ago

davidw 10y ago

Central planning has been a colossal failure both in terms of the economy at large, and in terms of urban planning. If someone can make money by building a store, that's great, what's wrong with it? Zoning should be about keeping truly noxious activities away from residential areas, not about keeping a corner store away from where people could possibly walk to it.

mikestew 10y ago
Ah, I took a different take on your original post. I'll leave my original reply, as I still agree with the point, but I see where you're going with this and heartily agree. One of my main complaints with where I live is that it's a round-trip hour to walk to any store, yet $DEITY forbid that we put a corner store anywhere in my neighborhood lest a developer be prevented from plopping another house on that plot.
- davidw 10y ago
  Yeah, my point is that it's impossible to say a priori what the mix of stores and single family houses and apartments and barber shops and other things should be, and where they should all be located. Markets are a good way of dealing with complex problems like that. They're not perfect, but better than the alternatives.
- potatolicious 10y ago
  Agree in general - but keep in mind that $DEITY is often your neighbors. Developers generally aren't the ones pushing for restrictive zoning laws, residents are. For decades Americans have lived under the impression that businesses near homes is somehow a corrupting influence, and that putting businesses far from homes is somehow a feature and not a bug. The current suburban landscape in America is the result of both overzealous urban planners, too eager to create a magnum opus of central planning, and the residents who eagerly bought into the concept believing that the best life is a carefully manicured, highly restrictive one. This is also why I'm skeptical of YC's thing here - this smells lot like how these misadventures in central planning have begun in the past. Sam's thought elsewhere about relocating startups to help bootstrap the new city's economy is also a bit disconcerting - these exist, they're called company towns, and they tend to be economically fragile (all non-diverse economies are) and good examples of central planning run amok. I sincerely hope anyone applying to this is very well versed in urban planning and its history world-wide, because there have been many misadventures in planning, and those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
  - davidw 10y ago
    > I sincerely hope anyone applying to this is very well versed in urban planning and its history world-wide, because there have been many misadventures in planning, and those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. I think this is one of the most insightful comments here vis a vis YC's plans, and it's one of the reasons I'm in the "markets" camp. I know I'd prefer to see more mixed-use, bike/pedestrian friendly cities, but ultimately I'm wary of even my own "plans" and think the freedom to have people doing different things, and let cities evolve naturally beats even the best of plans.
    - potatolicious 10y ago
      It's a tricky balance to be certain. I grew up in an Asian country with extremely laissez-faire regulations and the urban landscape was a bit hellish. Very, very economically efficient with huge economic diversity and competition, but nonetheless unpleasant (and unsafe!) in many ways. Complete freedom is likely not the right answer, but neither is the extremely prescriptive type of planning that has dominated American cities since the 50s, the type that Jane Jacobs rails against in her famous book. Oddly enough we were really good at this between the late 1800s and early 1900s. The places in America that people continue to enjoy being (and now have become enormously unaffordable) have almost all come of age in that era. I'm still not entirely sure what the x-factor was, but part of it was probably a more "gardener/enabler" philosophy to urban planning than the "prescriptivist/masterpiece" thought that dominates now. Planning in many places in that era was more about setting the foundations for the market to grow productively, rather than monumental projects designed to micromanage the conditions of every day life. See for example the Commissioner's Plan of 1811 in NYC.
      - davidw 10y ago
        Whereabouts in Asia? That's an interesting counterpoint and example. I agree with you completely: I'm not a 'markets' guy because I think they're the answer to all problems all the time, but because I think in this case we could use more of them.
st3v3r 10y ago
"If someone can make money by building a store, that's great, what's wrong with it?" There can be plenty of things wrong with it. I don't subscribe to the idea that whatever makes money is instantly the best thing. And I never said that I want to keep corner stores away from where people could walk to it. I said that leaving everything up to the "free market" doesn't always yield the best solution for everyone. It only yields the most profitable solution for those with the money.
- davidw 10y ago
  > And I never said that I want to keep corner stores away from where people could walk to it. That's currently what we have; nothing at all resembling a free market where you can buy a piece of property and more or less do what you want with it. The rules and regulations in place are absolutely about enshrining the car-centric city. With a more market-oriented solution, some people could have their "burbs" and others could have other kinds of housing and neighborhoods.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. A market based solution has no reassurance whatsoever that this would happen. As I said, markets only work to find the solution that makes more money for those with capital. That does not mean that it will be the best solution for those that actually live there. It's just as likely that a piece of property would be turned into a trash dump or strip club than it would be turned into a grocery market.
pinaceae 10y ago
how do you build roads without central planning?
- davidw 10y ago
  You could just build a big grid and let it evolve from there. I'm not talking about "libertopia" here, so yeah, I think government has a role. Just that that role in terms of zoning should be radically shrunk.
GrinningFool 10y ago
The rules don't come about because someone wants to stop a corner store from being built in their neighborhood. They want to stop the Walmart or the Lowe's or the strip mall. In addition to added traffic, you're now encouraging people from outside the neighborhood to come in, with the attendant risks. The net often gets cast too widely though - so that the corners stores can't be built either. I live in a quiet mostly rural neighborhood. I wouldn't object to a corner store replacing the nearest house. I would object to the house and all of its land getting cleared to drop a home depot in. Unfortunately, zoning regulations prohibit both - as if there were no difference between them.
mempko 10y ago
The alternative to central planning does not have to be markets. There are other forms of decentralized decision making.