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I have always been mystified by the logic of disallowing a mixture of commercial and residential zoning through a city. What is the advantage of having tracts o

by ttul 6y ago

I have always been mystified by the logic of disallowing a mixture of commercial and residential zoning through a city. What is the advantage of having tracts of single family homes that are miles away from a central shopping area, vs. mixing smaller stores throughout the residential area? It just makes no sense. Was this sensible in the 1940s?

chrisseaton 6y ago
As a British person when I played Sim City growing up I used to think 'this isn't very realistic - huge squares of a single type of land-use and a grid of roads at right angles' - then I visited the US for the first time and actually yeah it is realistic for there!
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Well, if you go West it is. The East is much like any European city - a warren of too-narrow roads. Which makes sense, as they were founded (by Europeans) when that sort of thing was common all over the world. Here in Iowa, which became a State in 1846, we have a nominal 1-mile grid of secondary roads covering the entire state. To make easy access to land for agriculture. It was planned and executed by surveyors, business people and pragmatic colonists.
  - secabeen 6y ago
    It's common in the mid-west. In much of the far west, it stops because lots of land has insufficient water and can be too rugged to be developed with roads at the road-every-mile level.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    The survey lines in Ohio are a particularly interesting mishmash of proto-PLSS grid and colonial style metes-and-bounds.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
The car made it sensible. Seemed like a good idea post-war.
- bluGill 6y ago
  In the early days it was. Most people still lives in the old areas, and your house wasn't that far from all the advantages of mixed use. So it seemed like you got a quite street yet were close to everything. Then we made the exclusive zones more than a few blocks wide and it took a while to realize that isn't a good idea.
xur17 6y ago
I think the advantage some people see (which is a tradeoff) is that separate zoning means you can live on a quiet residential street that is away from the hussle and noise.
dublinben 6y ago
The "advantage" and original purpose of euclidean zoning was segregation and the exclusion of racial minorities.[0][1] You'll still hear these benefits repeated in euphemisms in this very thread as "space, safety, and school districts." [0] https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Color-of-Law/ https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Color-of-Law/ [1] https://www.learningforjustice.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/COL%20Lesson%201%20Housing%20Book%20Excerpts%20Handout_vF%20PDF.pdf https://www.learningforjustice.org/sites/default/files/2019-...
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I'd say it's no longer specifically about race anymore, but about socioeconomic class overall. Especially with the ease of being able to search household income statistics for various zip codes and whatnot. A secondary reason is also due to the increasing issues of mentally ill and drug addicted homeless. For various reasons, the simplest way to minimize interacting with the aforementioned groups is to live in a far flung suburb, where everything is spaced out, separated by highways, and not conducive to homeless people.
bostonvaulter2 6y ago
I totally agree with that. I wish we used a type of zoning more like Japanese zoning, where instead of exclusive zones, you have maximum level of allowable nuisance in different zones. This is a good writeup that has been discussed on HN in the past: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html
closeparen 6y ago
One of the key impacts that planners worry about, aside from the obvious noise and smell, is visitors. Homeowners in residential zones expect that the streets are used rarely, and by people they personally know. Businesses generate traffic. Worse, much of that traffic is outsiders. Sometimes you will see mixed or light-commercial zones immediately adjoining residential zones, where the key criterion is that the business “does not normally receive visitors.”

by ttul 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

As a British person when I played Sim City growing up I used to think 'this isn't very realistic - huge squares of a single type of land-use and a grid of roads at right angles' - then I visited the US for the first time and actually yeah it is realistic for there!

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Well, if you go West it is. The East is much like any European city - a warren of too-narrow roads. Which makes sense, as they were founded (by Europeans) when that sort of thing was common all over the world. Here in Iowa, which became a State in 1846, we have a nominal 1-mile grid of secondary roads covering the entire state. To make easy access to land for agriculture. It was planned and executed by surveyors, business people and pragmatic colonists.
- secabeen 6y ago
  It's common in the mid-west. In much of the far west, it stops because lots of land has insufficient water and can be too rugged to be developed with roads at the road-every-mile level.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  The survey lines in Ohio are a particularly interesting mishmash of proto-PLSS grid and colonial style metes-and-bounds.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

The car made it sensible. Seemed like a good idea post-war.

bluGill 6y ago
In the early days it was. Most people still lives in the old areas, and your house wasn't that far from all the advantages of mixed use. So it seemed like you got a quite street yet were close to everything. Then we made the exclusive zones more than a few blocks wide and it took a while to realize that isn't a good idea.

xur17 6y ago

I think the advantage some people see (which is a tradeoff) is that separate zoning means you can live on a quiet residential street that is away from the hussle and noise.

dublinben 6y ago

The "advantage" and original purpose of euclidean zoning was segregation and the exclusion of racial minorities.[0][1] You'll still hear these benefits repeated in euphemisms in this very thread as "space, safety, and school districts." [0] https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Color-of-Law/ https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Color-of-Law/ [1] https://www.learningforjustice.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/COL%20Lesson%201%20Housing%20Book%20Excerpts%20Handout_vF%20PDF.pdf https://www.learningforjustice.org/sites/default/files/2019-...

lotsofpulp 6y ago
I'd say it's no longer specifically about race anymore, but about socioeconomic class overall. Especially with the ease of being able to search household income statistics for various zip codes and whatnot. A secondary reason is also due to the increasing issues of mentally ill and drug addicted homeless. For various reasons, the simplest way to minimize interacting with the aforementioned groups is to live in a far flung suburb, where everything is spaced out, separated by highways, and not conducive to homeless people.

bostonvaulter2 6y ago

I totally agree with that. I wish we used a type of zoning more like Japanese zoning, where instead of exclusive zones, you have maximum level of allowable nuisance in different zones. This is a good writeup that has been discussed on HN in the past: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

closeparen 6y ago

One of the key impacts that planners worry about, aside from the obvious noise and smell, is visitors. Homeowners in residential zones expect that the streets are used rarely, and by people they personally know. Businesses generate traffic. Worse, much of that traffic is outsiders. Sometimes you will see mixed or light-commercial zones immediately adjoining residential zones, where the key criterion is that the business “does not normally receive visitors.”