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It's worth noting that Japan also has a depreciation-based model of housing construction, but in Japan they don't endlessly sprawl outwards - isntead they knock

by Pxtl 5y ago

It's worth noting that Japan also has a depreciation-based model of housing construction, but in Japan they don't endlessly sprawl outwards - isntead they knock down the old depreciated homes and rebuild in-place. Their permissive zoning model allows this to provide intensification naturally without the kind of protracted legal and PR battles required for intensification redevelopment here we have here in North America.

taneq 5y ago
The attitude to homes there makes an interesting contrast with Western perceptions of a home as an appreciating asset. As I understand it they treat houses more like cars - a valuable but depreciating purchase that will be replaced within 2-3 decades. (Also I find the conversation-framing interesting here - when discussing a U.S. neighbourhood a "diverse profile" is presented as self-evidently ideal, whereas when discussing a Japanese neighbourhood it's never mentioned.)
speeder 5y ago
I am a fan of city building games, and one thing that greatly annoys me is the fact that all of them use the USA-only model of "Euclidean" zoning (named after Euclid, Ohio, that sued on the supreme court to be allowed to implement that kind of zoning now popular in USA). These games will never recreate brazillian cities for example... São Paulo, it has a neighbourhood that was a farm, and another that was a swamp. Some guy bought the swamp, and started to build offices on it, a ton of them. The construction workers then started to build their homes on the farm, back then intended to be temporary homes while they built the offices, but today the ex-farm is a full blown dense residential neighbourhood in the middle of downtown, and the swamp is a place full of towering glassy high-rises. Meanwhile in another area, a neighbourhood that was USA suburb-style full of big houses, that formerly belonged to wealthy farmers of the region, people realized that place was very easy to reach compared to some others, so perfect for offices, slowly the houses became offices, then torn down to have proper office buildings, then those got torn down and turned into towers, and then some towers had residential apartments built on them so people could live closer to work. None of that would been possible in US model.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Not all US locations have those zoning laws. Houston, for example, doesn't.
  - _jal 5y ago
    That's more Texas-marketing than anything else. It has a lot of things that smell a lot like zoning, they just don't call it that. Deed restrictions to a lot of the work. There are also density restrictions.The city steers where it wants things with tax policy, a big chunk of the city is governed by airport (federal) rules, and then add in historic preservation, buffering ordinances, lot size restrictions and so on, and there is little surprise Houston looks just like everywhere else in the US.
    - notacoward 5y ago
      In some parts of the country - dunno about Houston specifically - a high percentage of the housing stock is governed by HOAs which make zoning boards look like anarchists by comparison.
  - zip1234 5y ago
    They still had minimum parking requirements last I checked.
  - brandonhorst 5y ago
    Very interesting discussion about exactly that misconception in this interesting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  This probably has more to do with gameplay mechanics and the influence of the original sim city than anything else. This style of zoning allows a good middle ground where the player has input into the usage of the city without having to micromanage every building. A city builder that lacked that concept entirely would be interesting, but you'd have to come up with some other abstraction that feels vaguely reminiscent of city planning and also is engaging from a gameplay perspective.
epivosism 5y ago
Background on japanese zoning which backs up these statements: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html
- urthor 5y ago
  Much obliged.

by Pxtl 5y ago

taneq 5y ago

The attitude to homes there makes an interesting contrast with Western perceptions of a home as an appreciating asset. As I understand it they treat houses more like cars - a valuable but depreciating purchase that will be replaced within 2-3 decades. (Also I find the conversation-framing interesting here - when discussing a U.S. neighbourhood a "diverse profile" is presented as self-evidently ideal, whereas when discussing a Japanese neighbourhood it's never mentioned.)

speeder 5y ago

I am a fan of city building games, and one thing that greatly annoys me is the fact that all of them use the USA-only model of "Euclidean" zoning (named after Euclid, Ohio, that sued on the supreme court to be allowed to implement that kind of zoning now popular in USA). These games will never recreate brazillian cities for example... São Paulo, it has a neighbourhood that was a farm, and another that was a swamp. Some guy bought the swamp, and started to build offices on it, a ton of them. The construction workers then started to build their homes on the farm, back then intended to be temporary homes while they built the offices, but today the ex-farm is a full blown dense residential neighbourhood in the middle of downtown, and the swamp is a place full of towering glassy high-rises. Meanwhile in another area, a neighbourhood that was USA suburb-style full of big houses, that formerly belonged to wealthy farmers of the region, people realized that place was very easy to reach compared to some others, so perfect for offices, slowly the houses became offices, then torn down to have proper office buildings, then those got torn down and turned into towers, and then some towers had residential apartments built on them so people could live closer to work. None of that would been possible in US model.

cortesoft 5y ago
Not all US locations have those zoning laws. Houston, for example, doesn't.
- _jal 5y ago
  That's more Texas-marketing than anything else. It has a lot of things that smell a lot like zoning, they just don't call it that. Deed restrictions to a lot of the work. There are also density restrictions.The city steers where it wants things with tax policy, a big chunk of the city is governed by airport (federal) rules, and then add in historic preservation, buffering ordinances, lot size restrictions and so on, and there is little surprise Houston looks just like everywhere else in the US.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    In some parts of the country - dunno about Houston specifically - a high percentage of the housing stock is governed by HOAs which make zoning boards look like anarchists by comparison.
- zip1234 5y ago
  They still had minimum parking requirements last I checked.
- brandonhorst 5y ago
  Very interesting discussion about exactly that misconception in this interesting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
This probably has more to do with gameplay mechanics and the influence of the original sim city than anything else. This style of zoning allows a good middle ground where the player has input into the usage of the city without having to micromanage every building. A city builder that lacked that concept entirely would be interesting, but you'd have to come up with some other abstraction that feels vaguely reminiscent of city planning and also is engaging from a gameplay perspective.

epivosism 5y ago

Background on japanese zoning which backs up these statements: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

urthor 5y ago
Much obliged.