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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 fe

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.
    - Semirhage 8y ago
      You call it NIMBY’ism, they call it the people who actually live and invest in an area wanting to have the final say, not distant interests which might just be interested in developer kick backs.
      - TulliusCicero 8y ago
        It's both of these things. There's a reason we have governments at a higher level than neighborhoods and cities. Not every decision makes sense there. We've tried city level zoning, the result is that economically booming areas fight new residents, drastically raising rents while preventing others from joining in in the economic success. It's a disaster, just look at the bay area. Or look at the cost of sprawl in how much nature we've cut down and our per capita energy usage. What part of that looks good to you? If you zoom in too far, people get selfish and you hit externalities. Zoning isn't unique, sometimes you need more coordination for things to work.
        Semirhage 8y ago
        Another way to look at the Bay is that s previously unique American cultural center has already been irrevocably destroyed by yuppies and big tech firms who felt the need to drop anchor there. Maybe some pressure to spread out the impact of that “economic success” beyond a single city is more valuable than building ArcologySF? The world’s cities don’t need to be aggressively homogenized for the sake of affordable rents for an influx of techies. It’s a big world, stop crowding into one tiny, devastated corner of it.
      - closeparen 8y ago
        The interest of the region in a municipality’s zoning is exactly analogous to the interest of a neighborhood in an individual property owner’s land use. Free for all zoning would be letting the people who actually own particular properties have the final say. /s/actually live there/are upper-middle-class, white, and born at the right time/
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I suggest you pick up a small-town paper talking about any proposed development at all to get a sense of issues that exist beyond just whatever old zoning laws are on the books. People have lots of reasons for not wanting that to happen -- some, granted, are silly, but not all of them are.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    They’re all silly (often racist). In Annapolis, there is opposition to redeveloping City Dock, which is old and gross, for “historical preservation.”
    - bluGill 8y ago
      We know your bias here.
      - dang 8y ago
        Personal attacks aren't allowed here, so please don't do that, even if someone else is biased.
        bluGill 8y ago
        I'm sorry, it wasn't intended to be an attack, I was trying to point out that someone that they are biased. How can I word that better so that someone sees what they are? (this might be an unsolved problem)
        dang 8y ago
        There are quite a few options for wording that in a way that doesn't sound like a personal attack. Example: "you're saying X but I perceive Y, so I wonder if you might be biased because of ABC". Also, putting things in the form of a question—as long as it's a genuine question and not sarcastic—can go a long way for communicating openness.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
dwater 8y ago
This blog post is based on posts from the Urban kchoze blog, which has been linked on HN previously. I liked it so much I read the entire archive. One great post is about a possible remedy to American zoning: dynamic zoning. http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-make-urban-housing-more_7.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-make-urban-ho... It doesn't provide a direct route to move to Japanese-style zoning, but it would allow densities to increase organically based on demand in areas, which is a major component of Japanese zoning that is missing from American zoning. If you are interested in these topics, I recommend the entire Urban kchoze archive.
Spooky23 8y ago
Of course not. It's an awful idea because as a diverse, representative democracy you'll be subject to the whims of the congress. Do you really want rural conservatives who hate cities dictating urban land use as you would today? Do you really want democrats with tight ties to big real estate interests (key members of the California delegation, for example) dictating land use policy? Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley because everyone fled cities in the 50s and 60s to buy the then-american dream in the old orange groves. Whatever the next phase is, it isn't going to happen there.

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.
  - Semirhage 8y ago
    You call it NIMBY’ism, they call it the people who actually live and invest in an area wanting to have the final say, not distant interests which might just be interested in developer kick backs.
    - TulliusCicero 8y ago
      It's both of these things. There's a reason we have governments at a higher level than neighborhoods and cities. Not every decision makes sense there. We've tried city level zoning, the result is that economically booming areas fight new residents, drastically raising rents while preventing others from joining in in the economic success. It's a disaster, just look at the bay area. Or look at the cost of sprawl in how much nature we've cut down and our per capita energy usage. What part of that looks good to you? If you zoom in too far, people get selfish and you hit externalities. Zoning isn't unique, sometimes you need more coordination for things to work.
      - Semirhage 8y ago
        Another way to look at the Bay is that s previously unique American cultural center has already been irrevocably destroyed by yuppies and big tech firms who felt the need to drop anchor there. Maybe some pressure to spread out the impact of that “economic success” beyond a single city is more valuable than building ArcologySF? The world’s cities don’t need to be aggressively homogenized for the sake of affordable rents for an influx of techies. It’s a big world, stop crowding into one tiny, devastated corner of it.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      The interest of the region in a municipality’s zoning is exactly analogous to the interest of a neighborhood in an individual property owner’s land use. Free for all zoning would be letting the people who actually own particular properties have the final say. /s/actually live there/are upper-middle-class, white, and born at the right time/
emodendroket 8y ago
I suggest you pick up a small-town paper talking about any proposed development at all to get a sense of issues that exist beyond just whatever old zoning laws are on the books. People have lots of reasons for not wanting that to happen -- some, granted, are silly, but not all of them are.
- rayiner 8y ago
  They’re all silly (often racist). In Annapolis, there is opposition to redeveloping City Dock, which is old and gross, for “historical preservation.”
  - bluGill 8y ago
    We know your bias here.
    - dang 8y ago
      Personal attacks aren't allowed here, so please don't do that, even if someone else is biased.
      - bluGill 8y ago
        I'm sorry, it wasn't intended to be an attack, I was trying to point out that someone that they are biased. How can I word that better so that someone sees what they are? (this might be an unsolved problem)
        dang 8y ago
        There are quite a few options for wording that in a way that doesn't sound like a personal attack. Example: "you're saying X but I perceive Y, so I wonder if you might be biased because of ABC". Also, putting things in the form of a question—as long as it's a genuine question and not sarcastic—can go a long way for communicating openness.
  - emodendroket 8y ago

dwater 8y ago

This blog post is based on posts from the Urban kchoze blog, which has been linked on HN previously. I liked it so much I read the entire archive. One great post is about a possible remedy to American zoning: dynamic zoning. http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-make-urban-housing-more_7.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-make-urban-ho... It doesn't provide a direct route to move to Japanese-style zoning, but it would allow densities to increase organically based on demand in areas, which is a major component of Japanese zoning that is missing from American zoning. If you are interested in these topics, I recommend the entire Urban kchoze archive.

Spooky23 8y ago

Of course not. It's an awful idea because as a diverse, representative democracy you'll be subject to the whims of the congress. Do you really want rural conservatives who hate cities dictating urban land use as you would today? Do you really want democrats with tight ties to big real estate interests (key members of the California delegation, for example) dictating land use policy? Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley because everyone fled cities in the 50s and 60s to buy the then-american dream in the old orange groves. Whatever the next phase is, it isn't going to happen there.