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I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom, even though it’s probably the most direct limitation by government

I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom, even though it’s probably the most direct limitation by government today. There could be so much innovation in solving the NIMBY problem. Make a cash payment to neighbors while construction is happening to compensate for the nuisance, give them equity in your new building if their view is damaged, obligate builders to also build bus stops/bike lanes/whatever to make the streets navigable with high density, mixed use construction with privacy to avoid strangers. So many problems that people have with construction can be solved and incentives aligned if people had the ability to try to convince their neighbors. Instead we’ve ended up with city councils that have high incumbency rates because voting in city elections is cumbersome requiring you to convince the whole city to change zoning rather than just your neighbors. And I’m surprised politically liberal people aren’t even more in favor. So many people want to move to the west coast but can’t due to cost of living. Instead they move to the south and southwest. Even if California got a million staunch republicans, the state would vote democratic overall and get more electoral votes. In fact, I wonder if some of our political polarization is the consequence of reduced mobility due to high housing costs for new people. I’m hopeful the millennial generation fixes federal housing policy. That alone would be a meaningful contribution to society.

megiddo 6y ago
If it helps. I'm a free market type. We've been railing against zoning regulations for decades. Here's an article from Mises.org (about as free-market as you can find) from 2010 railing against it: https://mises.org/library/zoning-laws-destroy-communities https://mises.org/library/zoning-laws-destroy-communities
fennecfoxen 6y ago
If you’re surprised they’re not, it’s because you’re not looking. The actual free market enthusiasts condemn it extensively. Go over to reason.com and search for their zoning coverage. Go to the AEI and find their report calling for the abolition of single family zoning. (I’d send you links, but I’m on a phone.) The main difference between them and the more left-leaning types who hate single family zoning is that they’re not too big on replacing it with other zoning.
- voisin 6y ago
  > I’d send you links, but I’m on a phone. Off topic but I feel like this all the time too. What do you think would have to change about your phone to not feel like this? Voice commands? UI changes?
  - zbrozek 6y ago
    Finding stuff is a little slower and harder because of the small screen. Selecting text (e.g., to get a reasonably-sized URL) is massively painful. Copy-and-paste with long presses is finicky (often you end up moving the selection by mistake). Bleh. Forget it.
  - snarfy 6y ago
    Compared to a PC, copying and pasting on a phone is physically laborious. Switching to the app, selecting the text, switching back, possibly fiddle with the cursor position and then finally pasting by waiting for the phone to interpret a long press as a paste command. It all sucks. It would be nice if I could enter copy/paste mode, and when in that mode I had a mouse cursor that I could move by holding my finger above the screen (so I can see the cursor), and basically use my finger like a virtual mouse during the cut/paste operation.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
      On android you can tap and hold the spacebar to slide the cursor around. I'd love to have a phone case with a flip down physical keyboard and a dot like on a ThinkPad. Think, old school game boy. For the rest of my problems,we just need better integration and customization. My last two phones have pop out drawers pinned to the sides. This can be taken much further to provide instant access to the clip tray, contacts,messages,emails, bookmarks, calender, password manager, and on and on. But no. I get notifications from the top, which has the customizability of a closed source terminal. From the bottom I have a barebones task bar. And I can pin 5apps to a pinned button that I can dock up and down either side. Can't even change its color tough. My current phone is leagues more powerful than my first smart phone, but my first was more usable and customizable.
xkde 6y ago
> I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom We do.
briandear 6y ago
> I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom I do. However, I grew up in Houston which doesn’t have zoning. When I lived in Jersey City about 8 years ago and was working on the Steve Fulop campaign, I was amazed at how vicious zoning and variance fights could become. Zoning and the fights over it are exceptional hotbeds of corruption.
- h2odragon 6y ago
  This dude got famous after a zoning fight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer
godelzilla 6y ago
>I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom No surprise. Check out where right-wing voters live. Everybody is "free market" until they need to win an election.
- erichocean 6y ago
  Robert Conquest’s First Laws of Politics: Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
gumby 6y ago
> I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom... They do, not just in academia as other comments have observed, but in practice (consider Houston)
treis 6y ago
>Make a cash payment to neighbors while construction is happening to compensate for the nuisance, give them equity in your new building if their view is damaged, obligate builders to also build bus stops/bike lanes/whatever to make the streets navigable with high density, mixed use construction with privacy to avoid strangers. Half of what you say is indistinguishable from zoning (the transit part). The other half runs into the problem of people not agreeing to the compensation. The reality is that what you do on your property impacts my property and utilizes public resources. There has to be some mechanism to regulate that and enforce those regulations. The problem isn't the concept of zoning but how it has been applied.
ip26 6y ago
IMO there is a lot of intellectual dishonesty among many self professed free market enthusiasts. For example, a dogged insistence that externalities don't actually exist, or wait they could exist but in practice never will, or maybe they do exist but will never be large, actually it doesn't matter, the important thing is that we don't do anything about them. I wanted to call myself libertarian-minded for a while but the practice just doesn't seem to match the fundamental principals.

megiddo 6y ago

If it helps. I'm a free market type. We've been railing against zoning regulations for decades. Here's an article from Mises.org (about as free-market as you can find) from 2010 railing against it: https://mises.org/library/zoning-laws-destroy-communities https://mises.org/library/zoning-laws-destroy-communities

fennecfoxen 6y ago

If you’re surprised they’re not, it’s because you’re not looking. The actual free market enthusiasts condemn it extensively. Go over to reason.com and search for their zoning coverage. Go to the AEI and find their report calling for the abolition of single family zoning. (I’d send you links, but I’m on a phone.) The main difference between them and the more left-leaning types who hate single family zoning is that they’re not too big on replacing it with other zoning.

voisin 6y ago
> I’d send you links, but I’m on a phone. Off topic but I feel like this all the time too. What do you think would have to change about your phone to not feel like this? Voice commands? UI changes?
- zbrozek 6y ago
  Finding stuff is a little slower and harder because of the small screen. Selecting text (e.g., to get a reasonably-sized URL) is massively painful. Copy-and-paste with long presses is finicky (often you end up moving the selection by mistake). Bleh. Forget it.
- snarfy 6y ago
  Compared to a PC, copying and pasting on a phone is physically laborious. Switching to the app, selecting the text, switching back, possibly fiddle with the cursor position and then finally pasting by waiting for the phone to interpret a long press as a paste command. It all sucks. It would be nice if I could enter copy/paste mode, and when in that mode I had a mouse cursor that I could move by holding my finger above the screen (so I can see the cursor), and basically use my finger like a virtual mouse during the cut/paste operation.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    On android you can tap and hold the spacebar to slide the cursor around. I'd love to have a phone case with a flip down physical keyboard and a dot like on a ThinkPad. Think, old school game boy. For the rest of my problems,we just need better integration and customization. My last two phones have pop out drawers pinned to the sides. This can be taken much further to provide instant access to the clip tray, contacts,messages,emails, bookmarks, calender, password manager, and on and on. But no. I get notifications from the top, which has the customizability of a closed source terminal. From the bottom I have a barebones task bar. And I can pin 5apps to a pinned button that I can dock up and down either side. Can't even change its color tough. My current phone is leagues more powerful than my first smart phone, but my first was more usable and customizable.

xkde 6y ago

> I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom We do.

briandear 6y ago

> I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom I do. However, I grew up in Houston which doesn’t have zoning. When I lived in Jersey City about 8 years ago and was working on the Steve Fulop campaign, I was amazed at how vicious zoning and variance fights could become. Zoning and the fights over it are exceptional hotbeds of corruption.

h2odragon 6y ago
This dude got famous after a zoning fight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer

godelzilla 6y ago

>I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom No surprise. Check out where right-wing voters live. Everybody is "free market" until they need to win an election.

erichocean 6y ago
Robert Conquest’s First Laws of Politics: Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.

gumby 6y ago

> I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a limitation of freedom... They do, not just in academia as other comments have observed, but in practice (consider Houston)

treis 6y ago

>Make a cash payment to neighbors while construction is happening to compensate for the nuisance, give them equity in your new building if their view is damaged, obligate builders to also build bus stops/bike lanes/whatever to make the streets navigable with high density, mixed use construction with privacy to avoid strangers. Half of what you say is indistinguishable from zoning (the transit part). The other half runs into the problem of people not agreeing to the compensation. The reality is that what you do on your property impacts my property and utilizes public resources. There has to be some mechanism to regulate that and enforce those regulations. The problem isn't the concept of zoning but how it has been applied.

ip26 6y ago

IMO there is a lot of intellectual dishonesty among many self professed free market enthusiasts. For example, a dogged insistence that externalities don't actually exist, or wait they could exist but in practice never will, or maybe they do exist but will never be large, actually it doesn't matter, the important thing is that we don't do anything about them. I wanted to call myself libertarian-minded for a while but the practice just doesn't seem to match the fundamental principals.