What do you mean abolish zoning on federal level? Zoning is controlled by municipalities, as a result of Euclid v. Ambler (turns out using police force to contr

What do you mean abolish zoning on federal level? Zoning is controlled by municipalities, as a result of Euclid v. Ambler (turns out using police force to control where you can build things is not unconstitutional). Honestly, the issue isn’t zoning in general, it’s Euclidean zoning, up to and including municipal control of zoning ordinances. Urban planning is hard, and cities, especially small ones, don’t necessarily have the proper resources to do it well. Combined with plentiful NIMBYs, you get, well, the nonsense we have now. Maybe zoning at the state or federal level (like in Japan) would help, but that would also make it possible to enshrine BAD zoning into law for everyone. I mean, at least a municipality has a shot at doing some zoning reform since they are constitutionally allowed to (if the political will is there). One good baby step is to remove the distinction between single and multi-family home zones. This would result in duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and little apartment buildings interspersed in neighborhoods. It’s not perfect, but it slowly increases density. We don’t need to abolish zoning, we just need to zone intelligently and without the landed gentry using the legislative branch to keep their property values artificially high.