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> That’s not how we build cities; modern cities have urban planning departments, traffic engineers, zoning etc. I don’t know. My father spent his career as an

by jt2190 4y ago

> That’s not how we build cities; modern cities have urban planning departments, traffic engineers, zoning etc. I don’t know. My father spent his career as an Urban Planner in a Planning Department (in Ontario, Canada), and he never had the power to remake cities that you’re alluding to. Mostly his job was to do studies of proposed zoning changes of land use and the impact, and make a recommendation. The recommendations were presented to the Planning Board at public meetings. The board meetings were, of course, part of the larger democratic process, and were just as subject to popular whims as any other parts of government. Landowners and developers had a huge amount of influence, and worked hard to get their projects approved. I think the “Urban Planners did this” is mostly just a deflection (in Canada and the U.S. at least.) I point to the “smart neighborhood” that Google and the Province of Ontario (on behalf of developers) were pushing hard for in Toronto a few years ago [1] as a more visible example. patio11 has even written about this process, more from the developers side. [2] [1] “Sidewalk Toronto” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewalk_Toronto https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewalk_Toronto [2] “Dad’s war stories (commercial real estate). https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1389688784569073664 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1389688784569073664

astrange 4y ago
> Mostly his job was to do studies of proposed zoning changes of land use and the impact, and make a recommendation. The recommendations were presented to the Planning Board at public meetings. But that's the bad part - there shouldn't be zoning or planning boards. People who want to have opinions here should keep them to themselves instead of being able to enforce them; they're the reason for the US housing crisis and nearly everything else. Of course, there's a few more reasons like property tax systems (CA's encourages keeping old single family homes) and paranoid fire codes (which cause giant streets in the US so our giant fire engines will go down them). If you're reading patio11 you'll probably know that Japan does everything right here by having national zoning where cities aren't allowed to stop you from doing anything. https://twitter.com/McReynoldsJoe/status/1525326684374941696 https://twitter.com/McReynoldsJoe/status/1525326684374941696 As a result Tokyo is still livable, cheap compared to US cities, and a house in Japan is affordable because it depreciates like a car rather than being your main retirement asset through land hoarding.

by jt2190 4y ago

astrange 4y ago

> Mostly his job was to do studies of proposed zoning changes of land use and the impact, and make a recommendation. The recommendations were presented to the Planning Board at public meetings. But that's the bad part - there shouldn't be zoning or planning boards. People who want to have opinions here should keep them to themselves instead of being able to enforce them; they're the reason for the US housing crisis and nearly everything else. Of course, there's a few more reasons like property tax systems (CA's encourages keeping old single family homes) and paranoid fire codes (which cause giant streets in the US so our giant fire engines will go down them). If you're reading patio11 you'll probably know that Japan does everything right here by having national zoning where cities aren't allowed to stop you from doing anything. https://twitter.com/McReynoldsJoe/status/1525326684374941696 https://twitter.com/McReynoldsJoe/status/1525326684374941696 As a result Tokyo is still livable, cheap compared to US cities, and a house in Japan is affordable because it depreciates like a car rather than being your main retirement asset through land hoarding.