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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 ba

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.

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.