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> It is wrong As with any political matter, binary assertions like this oversimplify issues. A counter argument in this case is that strict zoning laws serve t
by liquidise 9y ago
> It is wrong
As with any political matter, binary assertions like this oversimplify issues. A counter argument in this case is that strict zoning laws serve to control an influx of citizens to a location. Those influxes can fundamentally change the culture for the present residents.
Is that a bad thing? I think it's worthy of debate. But blanket statements risk dismissing reasonable arguments before they are even presented.
- Fauntleroy 9y agoReread their message, grok the context, and connect the dots to figure out why it is considered wrong.
- simplify 9y agoIt's the responsibility of the writer to connect the dots on why it's wrong, not the reader. Throwing out a blanket statement like "it's wrong" and expecting your audience to figure out why (or not and simply agree, since that would be more convenient) is poor communication at best, and intellectually lazy at worst.
- ChristianBundy 9y agoSo, basically, you're saying "my ignorance is as good as your knowledge"?
- simplify 9y agoI don't follow. What do you mean?
- dragonwriter 9y agoI think it's more that “if you wish to convince people of your point, you can't ask them to go find the supporting evidence and reasoning, you need to provide the reasoning and identify the evidence.”
- khuey 9y agoExcept it doesn't really work that way. Strict zoning and building rules prevent the built environment from changing, they don't prevent the people from changing. Witness the decried gentrification in San Francisco, most of which has built very little over the past several decades.
- epistasis 9y agoIt would seem that strict zoning and building rules hasten and encourage gentrification. Without more density, and with more people wanting to live in the same area, rents rise more and the ones who win out are the wealthier renters. If some buildings were replaced with more density, then the housing supply reaches further down the demand curve to those with less money.
- closeparen 9y agoIn the absence of rent control, you're right. To stop a neighborhood from changing, you need both low density zoning (minimize incentive to tear down buildings) and ironclad rent control (make it impossible to dump existing tenants in favor of wealthier ones in existing buildings). San Francisco has not managed the ironclad rent control part, and as you'd expect, landlords found various ways to get rid of low-rent tenants in favor of high-rent tenants. When you have the ability to drag your feet on repairs, the mechanism is obvious. When your tenants are poor and you're constantly forgiving them for being late/short with the rent, all you have to do is stop doing that. Zoning by itself is just destructive. Zoning and rent control could theoretically work, though I'm not sure it ever has, because landlords are so much more clever about getting rid of tenants than cities are about designing rent control laws.
- khuey 9y agoI don't think it's really a cleverness issue. It's that "ironclad rent control" is an expropriation of private property that our legal system would not permit.
- epistasis 9y agoSorry, how in the world does this shut down debate? One should be able to say "Because of X, Y and Z, it is wrong," without worrying that somebody else won't even respond with "but what about A, B, and C, which mitigate the wrongness?" Or "but it is not wrong because D E F." Your blanket statement seems to shut down debate far more than OP's original comment.
- davidf18 9y agoIt is a regressive "tax" and it creates more greenhouse gas since people have to commute farther, and it contributes to income inequality. It enables special interests to take a share of wealth without creating it through innovation by created by others through innovation. These four items are deemed by society as wrong or bad and therefore it "wrong" as you say.
- davidf18 9y agoSomebody asked why it was wrong and I explained the reasons which are factually correct so if you're going to down vote discuss which fact you disagree with.
- closeparen 9y agoYes, it's wrong to (try to) stop an influx of citizens to a location. It feels weird to invoke patriotism here, but if there's an influx of citizens to a location, the individuals within it are doing the most American thing you possibly can: chasing opportunity. To lock the doors, to hoard the opportunity for yourself because you were born in the right place or got there first, is the most deeply un-American thing you can possibly do. We should be celebrating, encouraging, and facilitating the largest possible influxes we can get to our ascendant cities.
- someguydave 9y agoUnfortunately, I think this is a 'tragedy of the commons' kind of situation. Existing landowners (or at least groups of them) are incentivized to hoard the land-wealth by vetoing construction on their valuable land. What those landowners are missing is that everyone would be better off if land could be put to its most profitable use. The resulting higher density of land-use would likely result in each landowners property becoming even more valuable. Imagine owning a single-family-housing-sized lot in the middle of New York City, for example.