3 ms·

Sigh... not everything is about race - folks may prefer live in a less developed, single-home community no matter the color of their neighbors.

shuckles 6y ago
Single family zoning is about what you are forced to build, not about what people choose to live in. In fact, if the demand for detached SFHs was as real as you suggest, there would be no downside to zoning for multi-family; nobody would prefer to build it! Also, ultimately, the history of single family zoning is definitely all about race.
caturopath 6y ago
Not everything is about race, but American suburbanism is. I'm not saying that everyone who lives in the burbs is making a choice about race, but that is 100% how we got here.
danans 6y ago
Folks may prefer that, but the original policy in Berkeley was put in place 100 years ago specifically in response to the perceived threat of the African American influx. In highly developed urban/suburban areas today all over the country (not bucolic hamlets that people imagine), this zoning policy (along with others like large minimum lot sizes) effectively function as a demographic and economic sieve.
omginternets 6y ago
To add to this, some things can be tinted with racism while also being motivated by other -- sometimes even legitimate -- things. It's easy to throw out the baby with the bathwater. It takes effort to throw away the bad and keep the good. As stated in another thread: it's not a bad idea to prevent apartments from being built such that they overlook a single-family dwelling's back-yard. EDIT: in all fairness, I should point out that others seem to know something about the historical origins of zoning policy that I do not. It's possible that I'm underestimating the degree to which racism played a role in shaping the legal landscape. Nevertheless, I can imagine a handful of legitimate reasons for single-family zoning...
- caturopath 6y ago
  > it's not a bad idea to prevent apartments from being built such that they overlook a single-family dwelling's back-yard It's totally a bad idea to say that once someone has built a dwelling on a plot of land, they have forever banned increased density near them. This is more severe when we're in our current situation, where we punish high-value uses of land and subsidize low-value uses of land, like single-family homes and parking lots. Obviously the core observation -- that there are harmful ways to mix intensity -- is certainly true. The thing Berkeley, Sacramento, Oregon, etc. are doing are not to allow apartment complexes built in R1 zone, but ADUs, duplexes, and other low-intensity suburban housing. ----- The history of American suburbanism is a story of race. There are other players (cars, telephones, pollution), but race was a major pillar, and is why you didn't see US-style suburbs pop up in other countries without similar race relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight Race-restrictive covenants are still on the books for many older HOAs (obviously illegal/unenforceable) -- this isn't a conspiracy theory, these covenants were in black and white https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/3-Attention-white-home-buyers-600x1024.png https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/3-...
  - omginternets 6y ago
    >It's totally a bad idea to say that once someone has built a dwelling on a plot of land, they have forever banned increased density near them. That needs to be argued, not stated (ideally without the 'forever' part, which is very much a strawman). >The history of American suburbanism is a story of race. There are other players (cars, telephones, pollution), but race was a major pillar I think the question for most people is (1) how much of an influence is race today and (2) does racist motivation yesterday make the policy bad today. In all the discussions I see on HN and elsewhere, discussion of these questions is conspicuously absent. What we have instead is a doxa such that anything contaminated by racism -- in any quantity or at any stage of history -- is to be rooted out. Such arguments are not terribly convincing, even though we both agree that racism is a bad thing.
thebooktocome 6y ago
Urban development in the United States is already about race; it is inescapable and cannot be ignored. The demographics of about every American city bears a striking resemblance to the "redlining" maps used to deny affordable mortgages to non-whites. Redlining still happens, but now it takes the form of predatory lending.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Only on HN will someone look at housing & geographic distribution in urban America and somehow think "well I don't see how race had anything to do with this!" Beyond that, so much evidence points to continued rampant housing discrimination today and we don't even try to enforce anti-discrimination law anymore like we did in the 70s and 80s. Compare [0] with [1]. [0]: https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/real-estate-agents-investigation/ https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/real-estate-agents-... [1]: https://www.propublica.org/article/no-sting-feds-wont-go-undercover-to-prove-housing-discrimination https://www.propublica.org/article/no-sting-feds-wont-go-und...
runako 6y ago
Others have pointed out the historical nature of this policy, so I won't dwell there. But instead I do want to highlight that a key aspect of our legal segregation regime was enacting policies that did not appear to be explicitly racist, so that they could achieve buy-in from moderates who might not share the racist aims. (The secondary benefit is that they were more resilient to legal challenges.) So your response makes absolute sense: there are reasons for wanting to live in a less-developed SFH community. But there are also valid-sounding reasons that we might want voters to have to put a few dollars up as skin in the game before casting votes. Or why we might want to make sure voters meet some literacy requirements before voting. Et cetera. This is about a 100-year-old policy. It's not crazy to raise aspects from the history of US housing policy in this discussion.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
Yes, these days it's more classism than racism. Mandatory single-family home zoning means that you are required to rent or own a sizable amount of land in order to live in a neighborhood. This has the obvious impact of creating invisibly gated communities where the less affluent are unable to live there, even if they were willing to live in smaller accommodations, which also means their children may not go to the same schools. It's literally economic segregation, because it's the government forcibly segregating where people live through their finances.

shuckles 6y ago

Single family zoning is about what you are forced to build, not about what people choose to live in. In fact, if the demand for detached SFHs was as real as you suggest, there would be no downside to zoning for multi-family; nobody would prefer to build it! Also, ultimately, the history of single family zoning is definitely all about race.

caturopath 6y ago

Not everything is about race, but American suburbanism is. I'm not saying that everyone who lives in the burbs is making a choice about race, but that is 100% how we got here.

danans 6y ago

Folks may prefer that, but the original policy in Berkeley was put in place 100 years ago specifically in response to the perceived threat of the African American influx. In highly developed urban/suburban areas today all over the country (not bucolic hamlets that people imagine), this zoning policy (along with others like large minimum lot sizes) effectively function as a demographic and economic sieve.

omginternets 6y ago

To add to this, some things can be tinted with racism while also being motivated by other -- sometimes even legitimate -- things. It's easy to throw out the baby with the bathwater. It takes effort to throw away the bad and keep the good. As stated in another thread: it's not a bad idea to prevent apartments from being built such that they overlook a single-family dwelling's back-yard. EDIT: in all fairness, I should point out that others seem to know something about the historical origins of zoning policy that I do not. It's possible that I'm underestimating the degree to which racism played a role in shaping the legal landscape. Nevertheless, I can imagine a handful of legitimate reasons for single-family zoning...

caturopath 6y ago
> it's not a bad idea to prevent apartments from being built such that they overlook a single-family dwelling's back-yard It's totally a bad idea to say that once someone has built a dwelling on a plot of land, they have forever banned increased density near them. This is more severe when we're in our current situation, where we punish high-value uses of land and subsidize low-value uses of land, like single-family homes and parking lots. Obviously the core observation -- that there are harmful ways to mix intensity -- is certainly true. The thing Berkeley, Sacramento, Oregon, etc. are doing are not to allow apartment complexes built in R1 zone, but ADUs, duplexes, and other low-intensity suburban housing. ----- The history of American suburbanism is a story of race. There are other players (cars, telephones, pollution), but race was a major pillar, and is why you didn't see US-style suburbs pop up in other countries without similar race relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight Race-restrictive covenants are still on the books for many older HOAs (obviously illegal/unenforceable) -- this isn't a conspiracy theory, these covenants were in black and white https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/3-Attention-white-home-buyers-600x1024.png https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/3-...
- omginternets 6y ago
  >It's totally a bad idea to say that once someone has built a dwelling on a plot of land, they have forever banned increased density near them. That needs to be argued, not stated (ideally without the 'forever' part, which is very much a strawman). >The history of American suburbanism is a story of race. There are other players (cars, telephones, pollution), but race was a major pillar I think the question for most people is (1) how much of an influence is race today and (2) does racist motivation yesterday make the policy bad today. In all the discussions I see on HN and elsewhere, discussion of these questions is conspicuously absent. What we have instead is a doxa such that anything contaminated by racism -- in any quantity or at any stage of history -- is to be rooted out. Such arguments are not terribly convincing, even though we both agree that racism is a bad thing.

thebooktocome 6y ago

Urban development in the United States is already about race; it is inescapable and cannot be ignored. The demographics of about every American city bears a striking resemblance to the "redlining" maps used to deny affordable mortgages to non-whites. Redlining still happens, but now it takes the form of predatory lending.

whimsicalism 6y ago
Only on HN will someone look at housing & geographic distribution in urban America and somehow think "well I don't see how race had anything to do with this!" Beyond that, so much evidence points to continued rampant housing discrimination today and we don't even try to enforce anti-discrimination law anymore like we did in the 70s and 80s. Compare [0] with [1]. [0]: https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/real-estate-agents-investigation/ https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/real-estate-agents-... [1]: https://www.propublica.org/article/no-sting-feds-wont-go-undercover-to-prove-housing-discrimination https://www.propublica.org/article/no-sting-feds-wont-go-und...

runako 6y ago

Others have pointed out the historical nature of this policy, so I won't dwell there. But instead I do want to highlight that a key aspect of our legal segregation regime was enacting policies that did not appear to be explicitly racist, so that they could achieve buy-in from moderates who might not share the racist aims. (The secondary benefit is that they were more resilient to legal challenges.) So your response makes absolute sense: there are reasons for wanting to live in a less-developed SFH community. But there are also valid-sounding reasons that we might want voters to have to put a few dollars up as skin in the game before casting votes. Or why we might want to make sure voters meet some literacy requirements before voting. Et cetera. This is about a 100-year-old policy. It's not crazy to raise aspects from the history of US housing policy in this discussion.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

Yes, these days it's more classism than racism. Mandatory single-family home zoning means that you are required to rent or own a sizable amount of land in order to live in a neighborhood. This has the obvious impact of creating invisibly gated communities where the less affluent are unable to live there, even if they were willing to live in smaller accommodations, which also means their children may not go to the same schools. It's literally economic segregation, because it's the government forcibly segregating where people live through their finances.