4 ms·

It is. The government is expected to prevent tragedy-of-the-commons troubles, spite houses, and other anti-social troubles. This is largely why we even have a g

It is. The government is expected to prevent tragedy-of-the-commons troubles, spite houses, and other anti-social troubles. This is largely why we even have a government. Suppose a person buys a house to retire in, on a peaceful quiet little street with plenty of room to park. The neighbors then build: an 80-story apartment tower, a supervised injection place for IV drug users, an organometalic peroxide production plant, a hog farm, and a tire recycling plant. Maybe we overdo it, but yes, we're going to curtail private property rights.

paconbork 6y ago
> an 80-story apartment tower If this is financially viable, that land must be worth a ton. Retiree should sell the property and stop monopolizing such valuable land. They'll have plenty of funds to use to move elsewhere > a supervised injection place for IV drug users Very few people want one of these built near them, which itself causes huge societal problems. We'd be better off in aggregate if more services for the poor could be built. >an organometalic peroxide production plant, a hog farm, and a tire recycling plant Unlikely to be built on expensive residential land, but if they were it would help fight climate change by reducing commute times, since employees can now live nearby. The existence of actual property rights allows ample housing to be built in this high-demand area
- me_me_me 6y ago
  What about people who would on purpose devalue land- buying a plot and putting say garbage recycling. In order to buy up local area that would plummet in value.
- jariel 6y ago
  Wait for gas stations to be built on either side of your home in 'no zoning laws' suburb, wherein you lose 50% of your house price and can't afford to move out, and have to live with that as you become enlightened with respect to zoning laws. The real prospects of the lack of zoning is something that nobody wants, which is why literally every civil place in the world has zoning. The failure in the 'property rights' argument is that what's built on one property affects the other - there are externalizations. What is built on one plot, affects the materiality (and value) of the others. These arguments exist only on HN and other boards, thankfully.
  - SllX 6y ago
    Yes, zoning is used to insulate and even inflate the local property market and preserve home values; no that doesn’t make it morally justifiable to tell your neighbors how they can use their property.
  - boogies 6y ago
    > The real prospects of the lack of zoning is something that nobody wants, which is why literally every civil place in the world has zoning. Calling Houston uncivil is a subjective judgement I can’t objectively falsify, and so is calling its residents “nobody”, but the latter act strikes me as ironically uncivil, and IMO not in line with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments.
SllX 6y ago
Philosophizing about why we have governments, self-executing organizations which can write new laws which become reasons for their existence, is a fools errand. But there are good reasons we ought to have governments, and fewer reasons we ought to have a State. I would sum those up as keeping the four horsemen at bay, adjudicating disputes and delivering justice. A few decent reasons too, such as accelerating R&D with their justifiable actions, but pretty much everything else is an abuse of power and tax authority. Also your examples are ridiculous. There are few places in the world where you can just throw up an 80 story apartment building, and even fewer people who can afford to to spite their neighbors. A world where police powers are not abused to the extreme that they are is also not one without a quiet place to retire without an organometallic peroxide plant nearby, nor one without remedies if a neighbor chooses to break ground on such a project.
- jariel 6y ago
  What's 'ridiculous' is this notion that the state is using police powers to force people into zoning - or any other laws. Zoning is an important and foundational aspect of civil governance, and works well for the most part. If SF residents in any clear majority wanted to have zoning laws changed, they probably could, there's a fair component of democratic impetus here. Most importantly - it's essential to recognize that points of property are not fundamentally discrete from one another. The value of one piece of property depends a lot on what's around it. Large buildings vs small ones, noise vs quiet, density vs. green, sun vs shade, - there are major externalizations to every property, and zoning helps establish parameters for those things. Go ahead and put a 50 ft flag pole on our front lawn with a flag on it and see how your neighbours react. There are innumerable situations wherein tall towers would go up beside homes - they exist in droves in literally every city. Go to any North American city, go to where there are tall buildings - and find homes nearby. Those homes are likely there due to zoning. There are even more instances wherein homes would be knocked down to put up all sorts of other things - office buildings, industrial facilities, retail outlets, clinics - whatever. There is in general, no interest in that. Not even the folks wanting to build 80-story towers want it really, lets the autoplant be built across the street and destroy their own property value.
  - 6y ago

paconbork 6y ago

> an 80-story apartment tower If this is financially viable, that land must be worth a ton. Retiree should sell the property and stop monopolizing such valuable land. They'll have plenty of funds to use to move elsewhere > a supervised injection place for IV drug users Very few people want one of these built near them, which itself causes huge societal problems. We'd be better off in aggregate if more services for the poor could be built. >an organometalic peroxide production plant, a hog farm, and a tire recycling plant Unlikely to be built on expensive residential land, but if they were it would help fight climate change by reducing commute times, since employees can now live nearby. The existence of actual property rights allows ample housing to be built in this high-demand area

me_me_me 6y ago
What about people who would on purpose devalue land- buying a plot and putting say garbage recycling. In order to buy up local area that would plummet in value.
jariel 6y ago
Wait for gas stations to be built on either side of your home in 'no zoning laws' suburb, wherein you lose 50% of your house price and can't afford to move out, and have to live with that as you become enlightened with respect to zoning laws. The real prospects of the lack of zoning is something that nobody wants, which is why literally every civil place in the world has zoning. The failure in the 'property rights' argument is that what's built on one property affects the other - there are externalizations. What is built on one plot, affects the materiality (and value) of the others. These arguments exist only on HN and other boards, thankfully.
- SllX 6y ago
  Yes, zoning is used to insulate and even inflate the local property market and preserve home values; no that doesn’t make it morally justifiable to tell your neighbors how they can use their property.
- boogies 6y ago
  > The real prospects of the lack of zoning is something that nobody wants, which is why literally every civil place in the world has zoning. Calling Houston uncivil is a subjective judgement I can’t objectively falsify, and so is calling its residents “nobody”, but the latter act strikes me as ironically uncivil, and IMO not in line with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments.

SllX 6y ago

Philosophizing about why we have governments, self-executing organizations which can write new laws which become reasons for their existence, is a fools errand. But there are good reasons we ought to have governments, and fewer reasons we ought to have a State. I would sum those up as keeping the four horsemen at bay, adjudicating disputes and delivering justice. A few decent reasons too, such as accelerating R&D with their justifiable actions, but pretty much everything else is an abuse of power and tax authority. Also your examples are ridiculous. There are few places in the world where you can just throw up an 80 story apartment building, and even fewer people who can afford to to spite their neighbors. A world where police powers are not abused to the extreme that they are is also not one without a quiet place to retire without an organometallic peroxide plant nearby, nor one without remedies if a neighbor chooses to break ground on such a project.

jariel 6y ago
What's 'ridiculous' is this notion that the state is using police powers to force people into zoning - or any other laws. Zoning is an important and foundational aspect of civil governance, and works well for the most part. If SF residents in any clear majority wanted to have zoning laws changed, they probably could, there's a fair component of democratic impetus here. Most importantly - it's essential to recognize that points of property are not fundamentally discrete from one another. The value of one piece of property depends a lot on what's around it. Large buildings vs small ones, noise vs quiet, density vs. green, sun vs shade, - there are major externalizations to every property, and zoning helps establish parameters for those things. Go ahead and put a 50 ft flag pole on our front lawn with a flag on it and see how your neighbours react. There are innumerable situations wherein tall towers would go up beside homes - they exist in droves in literally every city. Go to any North American city, go to where there are tall buildings - and find homes nearby. Those homes are likely there due to zoning. There are even more instances wherein homes would be knocked down to put up all sorts of other things - office buildings, industrial facilities, retail outlets, clinics - whatever. There is in general, no interest in that. Not even the folks wanting to build 80-story towers want it really, lets the autoplant be built across the street and destroy their own property value.
- 6y ago