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Abolishing single family zoning won’t do anything to prevent you from buying a single family house. The vast, vast, majority of houses will still be detached si

Abolishing single family zoning won’t do anything to prevent you from buying a single family house. The vast, vast, majority of houses will still be detached single family. It’s just allowing the option to build an in-law unit and rent it out, or split the house into a duplex, or build a townhouse (houses with shared walls).

analog31 6y ago
It might just prevent you from living in it, for instance if it happens to be in between a discotheque and a pig farm. What makes me nervous would be not knowing if my long term investment in a living space could be erased by some arbitrary use of the neighboring land. And individual homeowners would have no power against corporate owners of the land.
- greenonions 6y ago
  Why is the government obligated to protect your investment? They aren't obligated to keep stock prices high, or to protect the companies land nearby.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Why is the government obligated to protect your investment? They are not. But they want people to invest, and people will not invest if they have no ability to predict the future circumstances. That's why governments try to create long-term systems and aren't running on mood swings. Nobody will invest anywhere if all the parameters are up for redefinition every day. "Oh, you built your factory based on proximity to the high way and train line? Well guess what, those are lame, and we've decided to remove both because we want to be cool. We are not obligated to protect your investment."
    - greenonions 6y ago
      They will invest, they will just price in the risk. The same as any other asset. We don't discourage this behavior in other areas, so again, why do we protect house assets? This is especially striking with homelessness being such a massive issue. Why would we protect and inflate housing investments when so many are perishing on the street?
      - analog31 6y ago
        Making private housing investment less stable won't make public housing more stable.
        greenonions 6y ago
        Public housing was not mentioned. Making private housing more elastic will certainly reduce the amount who do not have an option that they can afford and that is legal.
      - luckylion 6y ago
        > We don't discourage this behavior in other areas, so again, why do we protect house assets? We don't? Pretty much anything the state is involved is specifically designed to be long-term. We absolutely don't want volatile systems, we want stability.
  - salawat 6y ago
    Uh... Have you not been paying attention to the Fed recently? I assure you, it may not be written down, but the level of protection of the stock market the government engages in Dr facto establishes the government is in the business of protecting long term private investment after a particular inflection point.
    - greenonions 6y ago
      Of course I'm aware of the Fed. Do you think that the current market interventions are the best way to operate? In an ideal world, wouldn't the economy be much better off if it were able to sustain events like pandemics without interventions? The guarantee by the Fed of asset prices will lead to more inequality as asset valuations are disconnected from their returns. Do we want this to happen? Same with the government interventions in zoning, is this what we want? It doesn't cost near as much to build a house or apartment as it is to find a place that you are allowed to. Do we want to continue to allow housing costs to be disconnected from what a house actually costs to produce?
  - analog31 6y ago
    I'd prefer to live in a society where the government protects the stability of some kinds of investments over reasonable time periods. A homeowner can't just pull up stakes every 5 minutes if living conditions drastically worsen. Yes I know there are people who live under those kinds of circumstances, and they're typically not very well off. There are also countries where the government has no influence on investment by virtue of being utterly powerless, and those countries aren't very well off either.
- cesarb 6y ago
  > > Abolishing single family zoning won’t do anything to prevent you from buying a single family house. > It might just prevent you from living in it, for instance if it happens to be in between a discotheque and a pig farm. Abolishing single family zoning does not imply abolishing all zoning.
- ryanlol 6y ago
  You could just buy the neighboring land and only lease it out for purposes you deem acceptable.
eplanit 6y ago
Such "house as many as you can squeeze in" options will quickly turn neighborhoods into slums. The idea is planning for a certain density, and then not exceeding it. That way you can better plan for traffic, electricity and water usage, etc.
- yohannparis 6y ago
  What a poor argument! HK, Singapore, NYC, Paris, and London are slums? The numbers of US tourist flocking them might say otherwise.
  - eplanit 6y ago
    They contain some of the worst ones, yes. What a weak counterargument you make!
    - yohannparis 6y ago
      So: containing slums == slums... The density of those city is not contained in those slums.

analog31 6y ago

It might just prevent you from living in it, for instance if it happens to be in between a discotheque and a pig farm. What makes me nervous would be not knowing if my long term investment in a living space could be erased by some arbitrary use of the neighboring land. And individual homeowners would have no power against corporate owners of the land.

greenonions 6y ago
Why is the government obligated to protect your investment? They aren't obligated to keep stock prices high, or to protect the companies land nearby.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Why is the government obligated to protect your investment? They are not. But they want people to invest, and people will not invest if they have no ability to predict the future circumstances. That's why governments try to create long-term systems and aren't running on mood swings. Nobody will invest anywhere if all the parameters are up for redefinition every day. "Oh, you built your factory based on proximity to the high way and train line? Well guess what, those are lame, and we've decided to remove both because we want to be cool. We are not obligated to protect your investment."
  - greenonions 6y ago
    They will invest, they will just price in the risk. The same as any other asset. We don't discourage this behavior in other areas, so again, why do we protect house assets? This is especially striking with homelessness being such a massive issue. Why would we protect and inflate housing investments when so many are perishing on the street?
    - analog31 6y ago
      Making private housing investment less stable won't make public housing more stable.
      - greenonions 6y ago
        Public housing was not mentioned. Making private housing more elastic will certainly reduce the amount who do not have an option that they can afford and that is legal.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > We don't discourage this behavior in other areas, so again, why do we protect house assets? We don't? Pretty much anything the state is involved is specifically designed to be long-term. We absolutely don't want volatile systems, we want stability.
- salawat 6y ago
  Uh... Have you not been paying attention to the Fed recently? I assure you, it may not be written down, but the level of protection of the stock market the government engages in Dr facto establishes the government is in the business of protecting long term private investment after a particular inflection point.
  - greenonions 6y ago
    Of course I'm aware of the Fed. Do you think that the current market interventions are the best way to operate? In an ideal world, wouldn't the economy be much better off if it were able to sustain events like pandemics without interventions? The guarantee by the Fed of asset prices will lead to more inequality as asset valuations are disconnected from their returns. Do we want this to happen? Same with the government interventions in zoning, is this what we want? It doesn't cost near as much to build a house or apartment as it is to find a place that you are allowed to. Do we want to continue to allow housing costs to be disconnected from what a house actually costs to produce?
- analog31 6y ago
  I'd prefer to live in a society where the government protects the stability of some kinds of investments over reasonable time periods. A homeowner can't just pull up stakes every 5 minutes if living conditions drastically worsen. Yes I know there are people who live under those kinds of circumstances, and they're typically not very well off. There are also countries where the government has no influence on investment by virtue of being utterly powerless, and those countries aren't very well off either.
cesarb 6y ago
> > Abolishing single family zoning won’t do anything to prevent you from buying a single family house. > It might just prevent you from living in it, for instance if it happens to be in between a discotheque and a pig farm. Abolishing single family zoning does not imply abolishing all zoning.
ryanlol 6y ago
You could just buy the neighboring land and only lease it out for purposes you deem acceptable.

eplanit 6y ago

Such "house as many as you can squeeze in" options will quickly turn neighborhoods into slums. The idea is planning for a certain density, and then not exceeding it. That way you can better plan for traffic, electricity and water usage, etc.

yohannparis 6y ago
What a poor argument! HK, Singapore, NYC, Paris, and London are slums? The numbers of US tourist flocking them might say otherwise.
- eplanit 6y ago
  They contain some of the worst ones, yes. What a weak counterargument you make!
  - yohannparis 6y ago
    So: containing slums == slums... The density of those city is not contained in those slums.