24 ms·

North American vs. Japanese zoning

224 points by oftenwrong 8y ago

jdhn 8y ago
The biggest change I see from the NA model is that localities don't really have the ability to make their own rules. Seems like this would require a very strong movement at the state level to ever implement something like this.
- slivym 8y ago
  There's literally no chance of that happening in the US for fundamentally philosophical reasons. Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach. Whether or not a tendency to centralize more of their planning/decision making relative to the US counts as "pragmatic" is something many people (myself included) would take issue with. I think the most local level of government capable of dealing with an issue should be the one that deals with the issue.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    That's an inaccurate characterization. The Federal government has a minimal direct impact on civil administration in populated areas and always has. Land use, code enforcement, permitting, police and similar functions are all state responsibilities that are delegated to varying degrees to county or municipal government. US States are also nominally sovereign. It's less philosophy and more legal.
  - gascan 8y ago
    Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries [...] take a much more pragmatic approach. This seems disingenuous. Pushing zoning decisions down from the Fed seems a bit more like the EU pushing down zoning decisions. European countries implement their own rules, US States implement their own rules. Both are about the same size.
- andrewla 8y ago
  The original blog [1] that much of the content was culled from goes into some more detail here. > Despite the national guidelines, cities aren't completely powerless. They can identify zones where certain rules will be waived to allow higher densities, or alternately, establish certain criteria like a minimum quantity of green spaces on each lot, minimum setbacks, etc... But the basic rules of zoning are still defined by the national government. And in general it sounds like the types of zones is nationally mandated, but which areas are assigned which zones are a local decision, unless I'm not understanding the idea here. [1] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html
gallerdude 8y ago
Imagine we immediately changed to Japan’s system - do you think us Americans would do a good job utilizing it? I think the Japanese system is better, I just fear that part of the benefit they have is cultural (harder to implement than laws).
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  Changing to it immediately would be impractical, but a steady transition would be pretty easily feasible, outside of the political concerns. It's not like dense, mixed-use areas don't exist in the US -- NYC being the most obvious example. They're just uncommon because regulations force them to be uncommon. Where they do exist they work fine.
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    But voters at a town hall on live television will rightly reply that anyone who wants to live in NYC is free to go there, and anyone who feels victimized by the situation in the Bay Area is free to leave.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > But voters at a town hall on live television will rightly reply that anyone who wants to live in NYC is free to go there, and anyone who feels victimized by the situation in the Bay Area is free to leave. The problem being that there is more demand for that kind of high density living than there is existing supply. Hence the desire to create more. By contrast, if you want to live in a detached single family home, there are plenty on offer around Houston or Portland or dozens of other cities that already have a lower population density and thus less pressure for new high density housing.
    - TulliusCicero 8y ago
      The whole point is that sometimes rules are better handled at a high level, rather than a local one. The result of local dominant zoning is rampant NIMBYism, with unsustainable and anti-environmental suburban sprawl, people unable to afford rent in the areas with the most good jobs, and widespread economic segregation. The system is working for some definition of working, but not terribly well.
api 8y ago
This is something concrete we could push for to fix California's housing crisis. Something like this at the state level would go a long way toward making it easier to build efficiently so that supply can increase to match demand.
paulgrimes1 8y ago
“Category II Residential Zone: The permitted buildings include shops, offices, and hotel buildings as well as buildings with karaoke box”
tawm 8y ago
Are there any other examples of countries using a Japanese zoning system?
- hrktb 8y ago
  I think France has a similar system of threshold. You have residential areas, commercial areas, industrial areas and so on, with increasing permission to do whatever you want. That often means tall residential buildings will be near commercial areas, huge residential complexes (often for social residence) near industrial area.
claydavisss 8y ago
This would be a disaster in the US. This surely victimizes some in Japan also but because of cultural differences you just get more silent suffering. Even if implemented, the new Federal Zoning Board would be obligated to honor pre-existing zoning rules. If not, the party holding power in Washington at the time would get demolished. What politician will risk telling an entire state of voters that their assumptions about their property are going to be unilaterally changed? No one, it would be political suicide. Accurate or not, any politician proposing this would be accused of trying to socialize housing.
- andrewla 8y ago
  What particular aspect would be a disaster in terms of victimization. I concede the point about a "Federal Zoning Board" but I'm not sure I see the objection if a municipality were to introduce Japanese zoning.
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    Counties/municipalities are already free to zone however they wish, and homeowners and prospective homeowners are free to choose the county/municipality that has zoning laws that are agreeable. Massive revamps of zoning laws would require voter approval or the politicians in question risk political suicide. What voters are going to approve a huge potential downgrade of their largest investment?
    - andrewla 8y ago
      To be completely clear, then, the only aspect of this plan that you find may cause increased victimization is the fact that it is universally applied, rather than any aspect of the scheme itself?
      - claydavisss 8y ago
        To be completely clear - I want these decisions to be made at the local level. If a local government choose to implement a plan like the one discussed, so be it, that is a local choice and voters can vote accordingly or move somewhere agreeable.
crawshaw 8y ago
Comparisons between the governments of homogeneous states like Japan and sprawling unions like the USA are not particularly helpful. The nature of the problems the governments face is too different. Instead, compare California to Japan. From this article, run the thought experiment of a California-wide zoning board.
slivym 8y ago
As a Brit something that always struck me as strange was that Americans all seemed to own large, detatched houses. It just seemed odd to me, and whilst it's true that a lot of the US is less dense than the UK I find it fascinating that the zoning laws seem to massively encourage and protect single family homes.
- tudelo 8y ago
  Do you not want a large, detached house? :) I think part of it has to do with the fact that that is what people want... When you have such a place you don't have to worry as much about how much noise you're making or if you're disturbing your neighbors.
  - 5040 8y ago
    Speaking for myself, I'd love a small house with no parking and without a backyard. These houses are basically impossible to find because of zoning rules.
    - claydavisss 8y ago
      Huh? In most suburbs this is the only type of housing being built. Go look at any new construction in San Jose etc, its all vertical townhouse stuff with one parking spot and communal green space.
      - tacomonstrous 8y ago
        Perhaps this is because most suburbs are not in the Bay Area?
        claydavisss 8y ago
        What reasonably large metro in the US has no available townhouse-style housing? edit: responses below are moving the goalposts. I didn't ask what major metros are missing culturally vibrant dense communities with a great mix of walkable amenities, I asked what metros didn't have townhouse-style developments (small house, no yard). The answer is obvious if you spend ten minutes in redfin - every major metro has plenty
sgt 8y ago
"greatly limits density" "strangles redevelopment" "keeps neighborhoods in formaldehyde" This article sounds somewhat socialist and left leaning and assumes that such a "Japanese system" is what most families actually want. If you have a house in a typical middle class neighborhood, practically speaking you don't want neighborhood to densify too much. With higher density comes a lot more people living in the same street as you, and with that comes noise, more traffic and less personal space which can have negative psychological impacts on some people. It also comes back to the arguments for an against planning and development of cities; just because there is an open area available, should we really develop everything? I realize that we live in a world with a booming population, but it doesn't mean that we should aim to fill every square meter on this planet with people. Edited open space->personal space. Sorry guys.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Density doesn't mean that there are no open spaces left. On the contrary. If you build denser you have more room to spare. I'd much rather have a couple of large parks and urban forests like for example here in Berlin instead of a few hundred square meters of yards and garages around each house that nobody but the owners can use.
  - sgt 8y ago
    You are basically saying that people should be couped up in tiny little shoeboxes, so that parks can be larger. I don't mind bigger parks, but it's very nice to have a big yard and a garage too. With a city like approach in the suburbs, you will have less personal space. I am not talking extreme here - regular American properties in most middle class areas work just fine in my opinion, and they are usually not overly large.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      What's a tiny shoebox for you? Average apartment sizes in Berlin are about 90m^2 (~950 square feet). That's plenty for two people and enough for a small family.
    - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
21 8y ago
For the land of the free, some US rules are a shock to me. Like how in many places you are not allowed to have a brown lawn, or one with taller weeds instead of grass. > Grass or weeds taller than 8 inches is in violation of Minneapolis ordinance. If grass or weeds are taller than 8", an inspector may issue an order to the property owner giving them at least 3 days to cut it. If the violation is not corrected, inspectors may authorize a contractor to cut the grass and assess the costs and administrative fees to the owner.
- nickonline 8y ago
  8 inches of weeds is a pretty solid amount of weeds
  - joshuacc 8y ago
    Where I grew up (rural Southern US) weeds could shoot up to 8 inches within 3 days with the right mix of sun, rain, and warm weather.
- Spivak 8y ago
  The rules are a bit crazy but they're not born out of malice -- they basically exist to control negative externalities and protect the property values of the neighborhood. It's a very real fear that one of your neighbors will drive people away from your neighborhood, tank property values, and suddenly you have 20 families underwater on their mortgage. These rules are kinda dumb and often go way far because HoA members get a little drunk with power but they're essential for mobility in suburbia.
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    Family homes should have stopped being investment vehicles a long time ago. If we want affordable housing, housing costs must necessarily fall behind inflation, which is the thing brown lawn regulations are trying to prevent. I'm not saying brown lawns are the way to lower housing prices, but the whole point rests on the value judgement that expensive housing is better.
pluma 8y ago
As a European I guess this explains why Sim City's zoning never made much sense to me.
dghughes 8y ago
As interesting as the article is why is it titled North America vs Japan? Not USA vs Japan or North America vs Asia? There are 23 countries and almost two dozen dependencies in North America.
vorpalhex 8y ago
So the linked article doesn't directly cite any work but does provide highlighted notes for an article, which I followed... which also doesn't actually cite anything. So I went down a rabbit hole of researching early zoning laws to evaluate a very specific claim: that the origin of zoning laws is racist. In 1917 Buchanan v Warley mades directly racist zoning illegal... which affected a single city in Kentucky and otherwise had very little effect. In addition, the very first zoning laws didn't get passed until 1910 in the US and zoning didn't exist much until the 1920s [1] so that seems to undermine that claim as an emotional, not a factual one. Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [3] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options. [1] - https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/02-03.pdf https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/02-03.pdf [3] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/08/31/high-rise-glut-affordable-housing/#6f2ce63753e0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/08/31/high-rise... -- [2] - http://marketurbanism.com/2017/11/01/does-density-raise-housing-prices/ http://marketurbanism.com/2017/11/01/does-density-raise-hous...
- graeme 8y ago
  Your second link doesn't appear to support your point. It says lower density increased housing costs.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [2] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options. The issue is that density attracts people when it's scarce, because people like it. You can walk to shops etc. So if you build a little bit of density, people want to live there and the price goes up. What you need is to build a lot of density, so that the supply satisfies the whole demand and it actually gets the price down.
morley 8y ago
I find these types of articles invigorating and demoralizing at the same time. I think the reason why, and something I've thought about a lot lately, is: what would it actually take to do something like this? It'd probably involve a series of steps like this to do _exactly_ this: * Decide to run for office * Raise an enormous amount of money, somehow without indebting yourself to private interests * Convince a large amount of people to vote you into office * Bring to bear an enormous amount of political capital to convince other people to enact these changes That involves no small amount of luck and personal charisma. I probably have none of these things, so that leaves me out. There are other methods that are potentially easier (the one that comes to mind is effectively paying off an incumbent politician), but I'd roughly guess that there's only a 40-60% chance to get the outcome you want. Even easier actions, like calling your representatives, I'd peg at 2-5% expected value. Voting is <0.1%. Are these really our only options? Am I thinking about this problem wrong? Is this just the great struggle of human governance we've been trying to solve for millenia?
- rch 8y ago
  There are workshops to prepare you for running for office, and it doesn't have to be all consuming. I'd like to see more support for credentialed STEM professionals who are willing to take time out of a career to hold public office, but there are at least a couple of options out there already. Edit: Actually, working with a think tank like Rocky Mountain Institute might be even more in line with your thinking. Let me know if you're curious and I'd be happy to make some introductions.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Quiet resignation is always an option! (I get so jealous when I go to Tokyo or Munich and see that they have a functioning society. But I'm resigned to the fact that I live in a country where the trains don't run on time, and people are just okay with it. As an immigrant to the U.S. to begin with, I can hardly complain.)
  - NegativeLatency 8y ago
    I fully support your right to complain.
avar 8y ago
Somewhat tangential: One of the things I was most disappointed in when visiting Japan was discovering (at least in Tokyo, Kyoto etc.) that they don't really seem to have the concept of a public green space as it exists in Europe. Instead most of these parks have fences around the grass, and you're not allowed to lie down there and hang out. Some are also "temples" and have guards that'll yell at you if you even sit down out of the way on some stairs for a second. I live in Amsterdam, and in general I'd much prefer living in a smaller house with no yard of my own if there's a big park nearby, but in Japan I'm not so sure. If I can't use the park for anything worthwhile (lie in the sun, have a BBQ etc.) I'd rather just live in an American-style suburb with my own small yard.
- cavanasm 8y ago
  RE: the stairs, sitting on stairs anywhere is sort of bad manners in Japan (considered to be rude), but in most places it would be excused, especially for a visitor who doesn't know better; temples are a different story though. Same thing for sitting directly on the ground IIRC? Source: https://www.amazon.com/Amys-Guide-Best-Behavior-Japan/dp/1611720435 https://www.amazon.com/Amys-Guide-Best-Behavior-Japan/dp/161...
- T-R 8y ago
  I'm not familiar with public green spaces in Europe, but there are definitely traditional parks all over Japan. In one place I lived, there was a sizeable park with a nice walking path through the woods just off the train into the city; it was always nice to look out the window and and see all the families hanging out there on the way into town. Where I studied abroad, there was an open park that regularly had town events, but more notably had beer vending machines, so it was always full of loud foreign college students; there was a quieter one with hills and trees where locals walked their dogs a little further away. Osaka castle park also has a lot of grassy area to just hang out; everyone goes to picnic (read: drink) there when the cherry blossoms are blooming. Parks did seem a little more sparse in Tokyo. Edit: Here's one of those parks: https://www.hamamatsu-pippi.net/docs/2014030700074/ https://www.hamamatsu-pippi.net/docs/2014030700074/
- TorKlingberg 8y ago
  Grass just doesn't grow as well in East Asia as it does in much of Europe and North America. Something about the climate or soil type, I'm not sure. If you want pretty grass in Japan, you have to keep people off it. I suggest looking up at the beautiful trees instead.
kindatrue 8y ago
Not mentioned: In America, owning a home is considered the most important investment you can make. Who would've thought that mindset would lead to unaffordable housing! Or parents telling their children that they won't be able to live near their parents because... well... investment! Like this guy: https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245 https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245
- gascan 8y ago
  I would think owning your place of residence would be a pretty good long term investment most anyplace. It's practically a fundamental rule of the market; more expensive to rent than own long term.
  - refurb 8y ago
    It's practically a fundamental rule of the market; more expensive to rent than own long That's not generally true. Look at the house price to rent scores. In many cities it's cheaper to rent than to own.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - justin66 8y ago
    > I would think owning your place of residence would be a pretty good long term investment most anyplace. The problem is that residential real estate values fluctuate unpredictably, and sometimes wildly, and the investment is almost always made using considerable leverage. Housing is unusual among the commonly made investments in that a person can seemingly do all the sensible things and lose all the money they've invested.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    This is mainly a psychological trick: people are more disciplined about paying a mortgage under threat of foreclosure than they are about actually investing the savings from renting. But if you do actually invest the savings, they come out pretty close. There are a lot of costs to owning a home beyond the principal payment.
knuththetruth 8y ago
It would be great to have improved zoning, but switching to Japanese-style zoning in the US doesn’t solve the problem of US housing being an investment vehicle for Global Capital. In Japan, land itself keeps its (high) value, but still mostly grows/tracks with inflation. Houses themselves are seen as disposable with an approximately 30 year shelf-life.
- Tiktaalik 8y ago
  Yeah exactly. People love to compare zoning systems, but that's just a tiny slice of the picture. Among many, many other factors there is also the cultural attitude toward housing which is different from NA.
beebmam 8y ago
Japanese real estate has been in a rut for decades. I don't think Japan is the right country to compare the US to as a model to admire.
g8oz 8y ago
The discourse within the planning profession has to change before this type of innovative thinking can make any headway in N. America.
closeparen 8y ago
We’re headed towards a new caste system in America: those who inherit houses / tax concessions / rent control in productive places, and those who don’t. In many ways this will be a rebalancing, as the middle-class from places on the way down gets locked out of the labor force and the poor from places on the way up find themselves with exclusive access to booming jobs markets. But I’d anticipate some serious civil unrest before the border controls around wealth centers like the Bay Area are truly solidified.
- TFortunato 8y ago
  br3aer1t
csomar 8y ago
When I was a child and living my parents we had two properties: One small apartment in the city, and a big house with a sizable garden (like 50-60 trees) far in the suburb. We live 5 day of the week in the apartment and spend the weekend on the suburb. I think it was the best setup. You get both of best world. During the week you are close to work, school, services and need absolutely no transportation. In the weekend you can barbecue. Americans can have that luxury. I guess they just need to work harder to be able to afford two properties?

224 points by oftenwrong 8y ago

jdhn 8y ago

The biggest change I see from the NA model is that localities don't really have the ability to make their own rules. Seems like this would require a very strong movement at the state level to ever implement something like this.

slivym 8y ago
There's literally no chance of that happening in the US for fundamentally philosophical reasons. Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach. Whether or not a tendency to centralize more of their planning/decision making relative to the US counts as "pragmatic" is something many people (myself included) would take issue with. I think the most local level of government capable of dealing with an issue should be the one that deals with the issue.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  That's an inaccurate characterization. The Federal government has a minimal direct impact on civil administration in populated areas and always has. Land use, code enforcement, permitting, police and similar functions are all state responsibilities that are delegated to varying degrees to county or municipal government. US States are also nominally sovereign. It's less philosophy and more legal.
- gascan 8y ago
  Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries [...] take a much more pragmatic approach. This seems disingenuous. Pushing zoning decisions down from the Fed seems a bit more like the EU pushing down zoning decisions. European countries implement their own rules, US States implement their own rules. Both are about the same size.
andrewla 8y ago
The original blog [1] that much of the content was culled from goes into some more detail here. > Despite the national guidelines, cities aren't completely powerless. They can identify zones where certain rules will be waived to allow higher densities, or alternately, establish certain criteria like a minimum quantity of green spaces on each lot, minimum setbacks, etc... But the basic rules of zoning are still defined by the national government. And in general it sounds like the types of zones is nationally mandated, but which areas are assigned which zones are a local decision, unless I'm not understanding the idea here. [1] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

gallerdude 8y ago

Imagine we immediately changed to Japan’s system - do you think us Americans would do a good job utilizing it? I think the Japanese system is better, I just fear that part of the benefit they have is cultural (harder to implement than laws).

TulliusCicero 8y ago
Changing to it immediately would be impractical, but a steady transition would be pretty easily feasible, outside of the political concerns. It's not like dense, mixed-use areas don't exist in the US -- NYC being the most obvious example. They're just uncommon because regulations force them to be uncommon. Where they do exist they work fine.
- claydavisss 8y ago
  But voters at a town hall on live television will rightly reply that anyone who wants to live in NYC is free to go there, and anyone who feels victimized by the situation in the Bay Area is free to leave.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > But voters at a town hall on live television will rightly reply that anyone who wants to live in NYC is free to go there, and anyone who feels victimized by the situation in the Bay Area is free to leave. The problem being that there is more demand for that kind of high density living than there is existing supply. Hence the desire to create more. By contrast, if you want to live in a detached single family home, there are plenty on offer around Houston or Portland or dozens of other cities that already have a lower population density and thus less pressure for new high density housing.
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    The whole point is that sometimes rules are better handled at a high level, rather than a local one. The result of local dominant zoning is rampant NIMBYism, with unsustainable and anti-environmental suburban sprawl, people unable to afford rent in the areas with the most good jobs, and widespread economic segregation. The system is working for some definition of working, but not terribly well.

api 8y ago

This is something concrete we could push for to fix California's housing crisis. Something like this at the state level would go a long way toward making it easier to build efficiently so that supply can increase to match demand.

paulgrimes1 8y ago

“Category II Residential Zone: The permitted buildings include shops, offices, and hotel buildings as well as buildings with karaoke box”

tawm 8y ago

Are there any other examples of countries using a Japanese zoning system?

hrktb 8y ago
I think France has a similar system of threshold. You have residential areas, commercial areas, industrial areas and so on, with increasing permission to do whatever you want. That often means tall residential buildings will be near commercial areas, huge residential complexes (often for social residence) near industrial area.

claydavisss 8y ago

This would be a disaster in the US. This surely victimizes some in Japan also but because of cultural differences you just get more silent suffering. Even if implemented, the new Federal Zoning Board would be obligated to honor pre-existing zoning rules. If not, the party holding power in Washington at the time would get demolished. What politician will risk telling an entire state of voters that their assumptions about their property are going to be unilaterally changed? No one, it would be political suicide. Accurate or not, any politician proposing this would be accused of trying to socialize housing.

andrewla 8y ago
What particular aspect would be a disaster in terms of victimization. I concede the point about a "Federal Zoning Board" but I'm not sure I see the objection if a municipality were to introduce Japanese zoning.
- claydavisss 8y ago
  Counties/municipalities are already free to zone however they wish, and homeowners and prospective homeowners are free to choose the county/municipality that has zoning laws that are agreeable. Massive revamps of zoning laws would require voter approval or the politicians in question risk political suicide. What voters are going to approve a huge potential downgrade of their largest investment?
  - andrewla 8y ago
    To be completely clear, then, the only aspect of this plan that you find may cause increased victimization is the fact that it is universally applied, rather than any aspect of the scheme itself?
    - claydavisss 8y ago
      To be completely clear - I want these decisions to be made at the local level. If a local government choose to implement a plan like the one discussed, so be it, that is a local choice and voters can vote accordingly or move somewhere agreeable.

crawshaw 8y ago

Comparisons between the governments of homogeneous states like Japan and sprawling unions like the USA are not particularly helpful. The nature of the problems the governments face is too different. Instead, compare California to Japan. From this article, run the thought experiment of a California-wide zoning board.

slivym 8y ago

As a Brit something that always struck me as strange was that Americans all seemed to own large, detatched houses. It just seemed odd to me, and whilst it's true that a lot of the US is less dense than the UK I find it fascinating that the zoning laws seem to massively encourage and protect single family homes.

tudelo 8y ago
Do you not want a large, detached house? :) I think part of it has to do with the fact that that is what people want... When you have such a place you don't have to worry as much about how much noise you're making or if you're disturbing your neighbors.
- 5040 8y ago
  Speaking for myself, I'd love a small house with no parking and without a backyard. These houses are basically impossible to find because of zoning rules.
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    Huh? In most suburbs this is the only type of housing being built. Go look at any new construction in San Jose etc, its all vertical townhouse stuff with one parking spot and communal green space.
    - tacomonstrous 8y ago
      Perhaps this is because most suburbs are not in the Bay Area?
      - claydavisss 8y ago
        What reasonably large metro in the US has no available townhouse-style housing? edit: responses below are moving the goalposts. I didn't ask what major metros are missing culturally vibrant dense communities with a great mix of walkable amenities, I asked what metros didn't have townhouse-style developments (small house, no yard). The answer is obvious if you spend ten minutes in redfin - every major metro has plenty

sgt 8y ago

"greatly limits density" "strangles redevelopment" "keeps neighborhoods in formaldehyde" This article sounds somewhat socialist and left leaning and assumes that such a "Japanese system" is what most families actually want. If you have a house in a typical middle class neighborhood, practically speaking you don't want neighborhood to densify too much. With higher density comes a lot more people living in the same street as you, and with that comes noise, more traffic and less personal space which can have negative psychological impacts on some people. It also comes back to the arguments for an against planning and development of cities; just because there is an open area available, should we really develop everything? I realize that we live in a world with a booming population, but it doesn't mean that we should aim to fill every square meter on this planet with people. Edited open space->personal space. Sorry guys.

adrianN 8y ago
Density doesn't mean that there are no open spaces left. On the contrary. If you build denser you have more room to spare. I'd much rather have a couple of large parks and urban forests like for example here in Berlin instead of a few hundred square meters of yards and garages around each house that nobody but the owners can use.
- sgt 8y ago
  You are basically saying that people should be couped up in tiny little shoeboxes, so that parks can be larger. I don't mind bigger parks, but it's very nice to have a big yard and a garage too. With a city like approach in the suburbs, you will have less personal space. I am not talking extreme here - regular American properties in most middle class areas work just fine in my opinion, and they are usually not overly large.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    What's a tiny shoebox for you? Average apartment sizes in Berlin are about 90m^2 (~950 square feet). That's plenty for two people and enough for a small family.
  - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

21 8y ago

For the land of the free, some US rules are a shock to me. Like how in many places you are not allowed to have a brown lawn, or one with taller weeds instead of grass. > Grass or weeds taller than 8 inches is in violation of Minneapolis ordinance. If grass or weeds are taller than 8", an inspector may issue an order to the property owner giving them at least 3 days to cut it. If the violation is not corrected, inspectors may authorize a contractor to cut the grass and assess the costs and administrative fees to the owner.

nickonline 8y ago
8 inches of weeds is a pretty solid amount of weeds
- joshuacc 8y ago
  Where I grew up (rural Southern US) weeds could shoot up to 8 inches within 3 days with the right mix of sun, rain, and warm weather.
Spivak 8y ago
The rules are a bit crazy but they're not born out of malice -- they basically exist to control negative externalities and protect the property values of the neighborhood. It's a very real fear that one of your neighbors will drive people away from your neighborhood, tank property values, and suddenly you have 20 families underwater on their mortgage. These rules are kinda dumb and often go way far because HoA members get a little drunk with power but they're essential for mobility in suburbia.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  Family homes should have stopped being investment vehicles a long time ago. If we want affordable housing, housing costs must necessarily fall behind inflation, which is the thing brown lawn regulations are trying to prevent. I'm not saying brown lawns are the way to lower housing prices, but the whole point rests on the value judgement that expensive housing is better.

pluma 8y ago

As a European I guess this explains why Sim City's zoning never made much sense to me.

dghughes 8y ago

As interesting as the article is why is it titled North America vs Japan? Not USA vs Japan or North America vs Asia? There are 23 countries and almost two dozen dependencies in North America.

vorpalhex 8y ago

So the linked article doesn't directly cite any work but does provide highlighted notes for an article, which I followed... which also doesn't actually cite anything. So I went down a rabbit hole of researching early zoning laws to evaluate a very specific claim: that the origin of zoning laws is racist. In 1917 Buchanan v Warley mades directly racist zoning illegal... which affected a single city in Kentucky and otherwise had very little effect. In addition, the very first zoning laws didn't get passed until 1910 in the US and zoning didn't exist much until the 1920s [1] so that seems to undermine that claim as an emotional, not a factual one. Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [3] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options. [1] - https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/02-03.pdf https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/02-03.pdf [3] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/08/31/high-rise-glut-affordable-housing/#6f2ce63753e0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/08/31/high-rise... -- [2] - http://marketurbanism.com/2017/11/01/does-density-raise-housing-prices/ http://marketurbanism.com/2017/11/01/does-density-raise-hous...

graeme 8y ago
Your second link doesn't appear to support your point. It says lower density increased housing costs.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [2] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options. The issue is that density attracts people when it's scarce, because people like it. You can walk to shops etc. So if you build a little bit of density, people want to live there and the price goes up. What you need is to build a lot of density, so that the supply satisfies the whole demand and it actually gets the price down.

morley 8y ago

I find these types of articles invigorating and demoralizing at the same time. I think the reason why, and something I've thought about a lot lately, is: what would it actually take to do something like this? It'd probably involve a series of steps like this to do _exactly_ this: * Decide to run for office * Raise an enormous amount of money, somehow without indebting yourself to private interests * Convince a large amount of people to vote you into office * Bring to bear an enormous amount of political capital to convince other people to enact these changes That involves no small amount of luck and personal charisma. I probably have none of these things, so that leaves me out. There are other methods that are potentially easier (the one that comes to mind is effectively paying off an incumbent politician), but I'd roughly guess that there's only a 40-60% chance to get the outcome you want. Even easier actions, like calling your representatives, I'd peg at 2-5% expected value. Voting is <0.1%. Are these really our only options? Am I thinking about this problem wrong? Is this just the great struggle of human governance we've been trying to solve for millenia?

rch 8y ago
There are workshops to prepare you for running for office, and it doesn't have to be all consuming. I'd like to see more support for credentialed STEM professionals who are willing to take time out of a career to hold public office, but there are at least a couple of options out there already. Edit: Actually, working with a think tank like Rocky Mountain Institute might be even more in line with your thinking. Let me know if you're curious and I'd be happy to make some introductions.
rayiner 8y ago
Quiet resignation is always an option! (I get so jealous when I go to Tokyo or Munich and see that they have a functioning society. But I'm resigned to the fact that I live in a country where the trains don't run on time, and people are just okay with it. As an immigrant to the U.S. to begin with, I can hardly complain.)
- NegativeLatency 8y ago
  I fully support your right to complain.

avar 8y ago

Somewhat tangential: One of the things I was most disappointed in when visiting Japan was discovering (at least in Tokyo, Kyoto etc.) that they don't really seem to have the concept of a public green space as it exists in Europe. Instead most of these parks have fences around the grass, and you're not allowed to lie down there and hang out. Some are also "temples" and have guards that'll yell at you if you even sit down out of the way on some stairs for a second. I live in Amsterdam, and in general I'd much prefer living in a smaller house with no yard of my own if there's a big park nearby, but in Japan I'm not so sure. If I can't use the park for anything worthwhile (lie in the sun, have a BBQ etc.) I'd rather just live in an American-style suburb with my own small yard.

cavanasm 8y ago
RE: the stairs, sitting on stairs anywhere is sort of bad manners in Japan (considered to be rude), but in most places it would be excused, especially for a visitor who doesn't know better; temples are a different story though. Same thing for sitting directly on the ground IIRC? Source: https://www.amazon.com/Amys-Guide-Best-Behavior-Japan/dp/1611720435 https://www.amazon.com/Amys-Guide-Best-Behavior-Japan/dp/161...
T-R 8y ago
I'm not familiar with public green spaces in Europe, but there are definitely traditional parks all over Japan. In one place I lived, there was a sizeable park with a nice walking path through the woods just off the train into the city; it was always nice to look out the window and and see all the families hanging out there on the way into town. Where I studied abroad, there was an open park that regularly had town events, but more notably had beer vending machines, so it was always full of loud foreign college students; there was a quieter one with hills and trees where locals walked their dogs a little further away. Osaka castle park also has a lot of grassy area to just hang out; everyone goes to picnic (read: drink) there when the cherry blossoms are blooming. Parks did seem a little more sparse in Tokyo. Edit: Here's one of those parks: https://www.hamamatsu-pippi.net/docs/2014030700074/ https://www.hamamatsu-pippi.net/docs/2014030700074/
TorKlingberg 8y ago
Grass just doesn't grow as well in East Asia as it does in much of Europe and North America. Something about the climate or soil type, I'm not sure. If you want pretty grass in Japan, you have to keep people off it. I suggest looking up at the beautiful trees instead.

kindatrue 8y ago

Not mentioned: In America, owning a home is considered the most important investment you can make. Who would've thought that mindset would lead to unaffordable housing! Or parents telling their children that they won't be able to live near their parents because... well... investment! Like this guy: https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245 https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245

gascan 8y ago
I would think owning your place of residence would be a pretty good long term investment most anyplace. It's practically a fundamental rule of the market; more expensive to rent than own long term.
- refurb 8y ago
  It's practically a fundamental rule of the market; more expensive to rent than own long That's not generally true. Look at the house price to rent scores. In many cities it's cheaper to rent than to own.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- justin66 8y ago
  > I would think owning your place of residence would be a pretty good long term investment most anyplace. The problem is that residential real estate values fluctuate unpredictably, and sometimes wildly, and the investment is almost always made using considerable leverage. Housing is unusual among the commonly made investments in that a person can seemingly do all the sensible things and lose all the money they've invested.
- closeparen 8y ago
  This is mainly a psychological trick: people are more disciplined about paying a mortgage under threat of foreclosure than they are about actually investing the savings from renting. But if you do actually invest the savings, they come out pretty close. There are a lot of costs to owning a home beyond the principal payment.

knuththetruth 8y ago

It would be great to have improved zoning, but switching to Japanese-style zoning in the US doesn’t solve the problem of US housing being an investment vehicle for Global Capital. In Japan, land itself keeps its (high) value, but still mostly grows/tracks with inflation. Houses themselves are seen as disposable with an approximately 30 year shelf-life.

Tiktaalik 8y ago
Yeah exactly. People love to compare zoning systems, but that's just a tiny slice of the picture. Among many, many other factors there is also the cultural attitude toward housing which is different from NA.

beebmam 8y ago

Japanese real estate has been in a rut for decades. I don't think Japan is the right country to compare the US to as a model to admire.

g8oz 8y ago

The discourse within the planning profession has to change before this type of innovative thinking can make any headway in N. America.

closeparen 8y ago

We’re headed towards a new caste system in America: those who inherit houses / tax concessions / rent control in productive places, and those who don’t. In many ways this will be a rebalancing, as the middle-class from places on the way down gets locked out of the labor force and the poor from places on the way up find themselves with exclusive access to booming jobs markets. But I’d anticipate some serious civil unrest before the border controls around wealth centers like the Bay Area are truly solidified.

TFortunato 8y ago
br3aer1t

csomar 8y ago

When I was a child and living my parents we had two properties: One small apartment in the city, and a big house with a sizable garden (like 50-60 trees) far in the suburb. We live 5 day of the week in the apartment and spend the weekend on the suburb. I think it was the best setup. You get both of best world. During the week you are close to work, school, services and need absolutely no transportation. In the weekend you can barbecue. Americans can have that luxury. I guess they just need to work harder to be able to afford two properties?