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I’ve heard Texas has no zoning laws. Thomas Sowell always brings that up about Texas having no bust during the housing crisis because they had no boom. The lack

I’ve heard Texas has no zoning laws. Thomas Sowell always brings that up about Texas having no bust during the housing crisis because they had no boom. The lack of zoning laws allowed the market to respond to demand quite naturally. Do you spot anything wrong with that assessment?

csdreamer7 8y ago
Texan cities have zoning laws. Texas just has a lot of flat, hot land that people really don't fight over so development happens quickly. Houston was a famous example of a city that didn't have zoning laws (you just had to provide parking) and was praised for it, but then was discovered to allowed development in an area the US govt declared for flooding. To be fair, Houston really didn't need zoning laws to prevent development in a designated flood area, but still someone would have mentioned it if I didn't.
jhayward 8y ago
How did you leap from the existence of Houston, which has little zoning regulation, to that being the cause of market stability? How did you rule out the immense economic effect of the shale oil boom (guess what Houston's known for), and the effect of very specific and strict Texas laws regulating home lending? Answer: you can't. Houston is a rather unique environment, and discussing it would be an interesting afternoon's work. It's not simple, though. You might notice: it is rather spread out, for instance.
- sien 8y ago
  It's not just Houston. Austin, San Antonio and DFW are also affordable. Texas has grown remarkably economically and demographically over the past 20 years. Have a look at the demographia report on housing affordability (p27): http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf Texas also has fairly high land taxes that help to reduce prices. Less zoning really does work. Another possibility is setting up a body like the Reserve Bank for a state or city that releases more land for housing and increases height restrictions when housing affordability becomes an issue.
  - jhayward 8y ago
    Anyone using Austin, San Antonio, and DFW as examples of "less zoning" is making a severe error in fact.
    - sien 8y ago
      Oh thanks. How interesting. I thought they had freer zoning as well. For anyone else, the height limits in Austin are tight. https://fee.org/articles/9-ways-austin-keeps-its-zoning-rules-weird/ https://fee.org/articles/9-ways-austin-keeps-its-zoning-rule...
kodablah 8y ago
Texas has zoning laws, especially north Texas. As a culture, Texans tend to want to distance themselves from each other as they age even at the cost of large commutes. Combine that with a willingness to rezone, large numbers of capitalistic home builders, and few natural barriers to prevent sprawl and that's why the bust/boom isn't as significant. It is a non-stop suburb-building expanse which does respond to demand quite naturally (i.e. a current, ongoing, immense population surge). Of course, each metro handles details different. For example, in Houston you'll find more multifamily dwellings amongst single family ones than in the Metroplex as well as a larger mix of incomes in proximity to each other. I'll come up with a term for building in an environment with lots of land: FISEBY - fine, in someone else's backyard.
burlesona 8y ago
As everyone else said Texas does have zoning, but it turns out that just having quite high property taxes (and no income tax) leads to a flatter income distribution and more affordable housing. It’s also hot and not that pretty (I’m from Austin okay so don’t shoot the messenger!) and there’s a relative abundance of buildable land, all of those things make it a little easier to manage growth. But Texas has sprawled like crazy and the central cities are still struggling with overheated housing (especially in austin) within the urban, semi-walkable areas, because they aren’t building any more of that stuff.
- jxramos 8y ago
  I stand corrected, I think I hastily generalized the Houston example I think the source actually used to all of Texas when in fact the zoning examples were defined with respect to Houston.
TheCoelacanth 8y ago
"Houston has no zoning laws" is a very misleading meme. It doesn't define zones with strict segregation of residential and commercial use as is typical of most cities' zoning regulations, but it does have laws that impose most of the other restrictions that usually come along zoning and also gives an unusually high level of power to private land use covenants, so they do have de facto zoning if not de jure zoning[1]. [1] https://kinder.rice.edu/2015/09/08/forget-what-youve-heard-houston-really-does-have-zoning-sort-of https://kinder.rice.edu/2015/09/08/forget-what-youve-heard-h...

csdreamer7 8y ago

Texan cities have zoning laws. Texas just has a lot of flat, hot land that people really don't fight over so development happens quickly. Houston was a famous example of a city that didn't have zoning laws (you just had to provide parking) and was praised for it, but then was discovered to allowed development in an area the US govt declared for flooding. To be fair, Houston really didn't need zoning laws to prevent development in a designated flood area, but still someone would have mentioned it if I didn't.

jhayward 8y ago

How did you leap from the existence of Houston, which has little zoning regulation, to that being the cause of market stability? How did you rule out the immense economic effect of the shale oil boom (guess what Houston's known for), and the effect of very specific and strict Texas laws regulating home lending? Answer: you can't. Houston is a rather unique environment, and discussing it would be an interesting afternoon's work. It's not simple, though. You might notice: it is rather spread out, for instance.

sien 8y ago
It's not just Houston. Austin, San Antonio and DFW are also affordable. Texas has grown remarkably economically and demographically over the past 20 years. Have a look at the demographia report on housing affordability (p27): http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf Texas also has fairly high land taxes that help to reduce prices. Less zoning really does work. Another possibility is setting up a body like the Reserve Bank for a state or city that releases more land for housing and increases height restrictions when housing affordability becomes an issue.
- jhayward 8y ago
  Anyone using Austin, San Antonio, and DFW as examples of "less zoning" is making a severe error in fact.
  - sien 8y ago
    Oh thanks. How interesting. I thought they had freer zoning as well. For anyone else, the height limits in Austin are tight. https://fee.org/articles/9-ways-austin-keeps-its-zoning-rules-weird/ https://fee.org/articles/9-ways-austin-keeps-its-zoning-rule...

kodablah 8y ago

Texas has zoning laws, especially north Texas. As a culture, Texans tend to want to distance themselves from each other as they age even at the cost of large commutes. Combine that with a willingness to rezone, large numbers of capitalistic home builders, and few natural barriers to prevent sprawl and that's why the bust/boom isn't as significant. It is a non-stop suburb-building expanse which does respond to demand quite naturally (i.e. a current, ongoing, immense population surge). Of course, each metro handles details different. For example, in Houston you'll find more multifamily dwellings amongst single family ones than in the Metroplex as well as a larger mix of incomes in proximity to each other. I'll come up with a term for building in an environment with lots of land: FISEBY - fine, in someone else's backyard.

burlesona 8y ago

As everyone else said Texas does have zoning, but it turns out that just having quite high property taxes (and no income tax) leads to a flatter income distribution and more affordable housing. It’s also hot and not that pretty (I’m from Austin okay so don’t shoot the messenger!) and there’s a relative abundance of buildable land, all of those things make it a little easier to manage growth. But Texas has sprawled like crazy and the central cities are still struggling with overheated housing (especially in austin) within the urban, semi-walkable areas, because they aren’t building any more of that stuff.

jxramos 8y ago
I stand corrected, I think I hastily generalized the Houston example I think the source actually used to all of Texas when in fact the zoning examples were defined with respect to Houston.

TheCoelacanth 8y ago

"Houston has no zoning laws" is a very misleading meme. It doesn't define zones with strict segregation of residential and commercial use as is typical of most cities' zoning regulations, but it does have laws that impose most of the other restrictions that usually come along zoning and also gives an unusually high level of power to private land use covenants, so they do have de facto zoning if not de jure zoning[1]. [1] https://kinder.rice.edu/2015/09/08/forget-what-youve-heard-houston-really-does-have-zoning-sort-of https://kinder.rice.edu/2015/09/08/forget-what-youve-heard-h...