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People clearly shouldn’t put tanneries, steel mills, and chemical processing plants in residential neighborhoods right next to primary schools. But massively si

People clearly shouldn’t put tanneries, steel mills, and chemical processing plants in residential neighborhoods right next to primary schools. But massively simplified and less restricted zoning standardized across broader geographical regions (vs. every town for itself) would be very helpful, and in cities there’s really no good reason to have areas zoned to only allow single family detached houses with no multi-unit buildings or commercial activity allowed whatsoever. And the parking requirements, height limits, mandatory setbacks, etc. make North American cities remarkably space-inefficient and infrastructure-expensive. The zoning requirements in Japan seem like a good model.

mirceal 4y ago
There is definitely a middle ground and I agree with you that the public health concerns should be one of the things that keep some sort of coarser zoning in place. Now, the reason for the ridiculous zoning based on housing type and commercial activity are really really simple: to separate the rich from the middle class and the middle class from the poor. It's extremely prejudiced and wrong. Yet here we are.
- jen20 4y ago
  It also seems designed to stop anyone walking to a bar, yet be able to walk to a church.
lazide 4y ago
It’s that way because the folks there with control (in this system, the voters, though often ‘influenced’ by local politicians and power players) want it that way. If someone has a setup they consider nice, or even just wants to not get stepped on by a bunch of other changes, they’re going to work hard to protect it. It’s human nature.
- ambrozk 4y ago
  The solution is to decrease the power of hyper-local interests whose incentives do not align with those of the broader polity. Small cities and even neighborhoods benefit from regional economic growth but would rather their distant neighbors pay the cost for it in terms of density. That's a recipe for dysfunction.
  - ilikehurdles 4y ago
    “Hyper-local interests” (your neighborhood) face all the direct negative consequences of the policies that “broader polity” attempts to force upon them.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Removing the ability to have ‘hyper local interests’ means everywhere within the given ‘zone’ this is being done in is going to be similar, or at least under the same set of rules. Which pretty much means similar, eventually. When rules have real concrete impacts that help or hurt one group over another (which is impossible to not happen), of course different groups are going to fight for or against it based on how they’re currently benefiting or not from it. The push for removing zoning laws in broad strokes seems to be between the established current residents vs folks who WANT to be residents/or get established. Which is cool and all, though if the desired area is currently ‘exclusive’ (which most nice areas are, the exclusivity is what allows them to push out what they don’t want, even if it offends someone), it’s hard to not see that this will destroy that exclusivity. Which will often destroy or largely alter the character of that place. Atherton isn’t going to be Atherton (or why folks who like Atherton consider Atherton so nice), if every lot could be subdivided to high density condos, for instance. Removing the ability to stop that would certainly allow a lot more people to live in Atherton, but it’s not like we have a shortage of actually livable space anywhere in California, or the US. We do have a shortage of space where people want to live/be right now, but that is inevitable no matter what we do - and a lot of the high demand areas are because of the existing exclusive rules More people want to be in the ‘place to be’ more than the ‘middle of nowhere’ (or close to jobs not in a place with no jobs, or in a place with beautiful views instead of the middle of a wasteland, etc!) and that creates a demand gradient where the most in demand places are always more in demand than they have supply, assuming supply is less than infinite, which is almost always is for real estate. If it’s ‘exclusive’, that generally means even more restricted supply. Harvard only allows so many students, for instance, and it’s not because they could not actually teach more to some standard. Making it so Harvard has to admit anyone who applies means Harvard isn’t going to be exclusive anymore, and that’s going to change what Harvard is and means a huge amount pretty quick.
vidarh 4y ago
I'm increasingly leaning towards algorithmic zoning based on pre-existing use. For example, allow adding x% of floors above the average of the surrounding buildings, rounded down, might be a rule to consider. Similarly apply classifications and allow one step "further" in the classification system than the average of your neighbours. Allow more if all neighbours consent. Allow more if e.g. adjacent to transport hubs. So e.g. if your neighbours are all single floor bungalows, you might be automatically allowed to put up a two floor building, and you might be automatically allowed to change use from purely residential to, say, run a shop on the ground floor without late opening (just to take an example of a minor low impact step up from purely residential), but you'd need to apply for an exception if you want to build higher or do something higher impact. If there are automatic permitted developments with reasonable limits, the threshold for exceptions can be fairly high. Most of the time a model like that would allow a neighbourhood to change gradually and dynamically as people move in who want it to change, while not so fast that it ought to drive out people who like it roughly the way it is. Neighbours on both sides adding a floor more than you presently have? Suddenly you might have an automatic right to add 2 if you like, but your neighbours might not be allowed to match you unless neighbours on other sides also gets with the program. So done carefully, changes are contained in pockets, and as a bonus you get neighbourhoods that are not all cookie cutter but can still retain a distinct character. Density would naturally "radiate" out from existing high density areas and transport as people take advantage of the more lenient limits of high averages of surrounding buildings, and you "automatically" get gradually declining heights rather than huge abrupt steps (e.g. near me there's been recent planning conflicts over a number of new 20-30 floor buildings almost directly adjacent to two-floor terraced single family homes. But the building pattern is like that in the first place only because planning for decades resisted gradual increases). Getting the patterns right to e.g. protect pockets for parks and essential services would take a lot of work, but you'd also have the benefit of being able to program visualisations to show immediate impacts on rights for neighbours etc. of allowing exceptions or when tweaking rules. And it'd allow streamlining approvals if more of the planning process is fully predictable.

mirceal 4y ago

There is definitely a middle ground and I agree with you that the public health concerns should be one of the things that keep some sort of coarser zoning in place. Now, the reason for the ridiculous zoning based on housing type and commercial activity are really really simple: to separate the rich from the middle class and the middle class from the poor. It's extremely prejudiced and wrong. Yet here we are.

jen20 4y ago
It also seems designed to stop anyone walking to a bar, yet be able to walk to a church.

lazide 4y ago

It’s that way because the folks there with control (in this system, the voters, though often ‘influenced’ by local politicians and power players) want it that way. If someone has a setup they consider nice, or even just wants to not get stepped on by a bunch of other changes, they’re going to work hard to protect it. It’s human nature.

ambrozk 4y ago
The solution is to decrease the power of hyper-local interests whose incentives do not align with those of the broader polity. Small cities and even neighborhoods benefit from regional economic growth but would rather their distant neighbors pay the cost for it in terms of density. That's a recipe for dysfunction.
- ilikehurdles 4y ago
  “Hyper-local interests” (your neighborhood) face all the direct negative consequences of the policies that “broader polity” attempts to force upon them.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Removing the ability to have ‘hyper local interests’ means everywhere within the given ‘zone’ this is being done in is going to be similar, or at least under the same set of rules. Which pretty much means similar, eventually. When rules have real concrete impacts that help or hurt one group over another (which is impossible to not happen), of course different groups are going to fight for or against it based on how they’re currently benefiting or not from it. The push for removing zoning laws in broad strokes seems to be between the established current residents vs folks who WANT to be residents/or get established. Which is cool and all, though if the desired area is currently ‘exclusive’ (which most nice areas are, the exclusivity is what allows them to push out what they don’t want, even if it offends someone), it’s hard to not see that this will destroy that exclusivity. Which will often destroy or largely alter the character of that place. Atherton isn’t going to be Atherton (or why folks who like Atherton consider Atherton so nice), if every lot could be subdivided to high density condos, for instance. Removing the ability to stop that would certainly allow a lot more people to live in Atherton, but it’s not like we have a shortage of actually livable space anywhere in California, or the US. We do have a shortage of space where people want to live/be right now, but that is inevitable no matter what we do - and a lot of the high demand areas are because of the existing exclusive rules More people want to be in the ‘place to be’ more than the ‘middle of nowhere’ (or close to jobs not in a place with no jobs, or in a place with beautiful views instead of the middle of a wasteland, etc!) and that creates a demand gradient where the most in demand places are always more in demand than they have supply, assuming supply is less than infinite, which is almost always is for real estate. If it’s ‘exclusive’, that generally means even more restricted supply. Harvard only allows so many students, for instance, and it’s not because they could not actually teach more to some standard. Making it so Harvard has to admit anyone who applies means Harvard isn’t going to be exclusive anymore, and that’s going to change what Harvard is and means a huge amount pretty quick.

vidarh 4y ago

I'm increasingly leaning towards algorithmic zoning based on pre-existing use. For example, allow adding x% of floors above the average of the surrounding buildings, rounded down, might be a rule to consider. Similarly apply classifications and allow one step "further" in the classification system than the average of your neighbours. Allow more if all neighbours consent. Allow more if e.g. adjacent to transport hubs. So e.g. if your neighbours are all single floor bungalows, you might be automatically allowed to put up a two floor building, and you might be automatically allowed to change use from purely residential to, say, run a shop on the ground floor without late opening (just to take an example of a minor low impact step up from purely residential), but you'd need to apply for an exception if you want to build higher or do something higher impact. If there are automatic permitted developments with reasonable limits, the threshold for exceptions can be fairly high. Most of the time a model like that would allow a neighbourhood to change gradually and dynamically as people move in who want it to change, while not so fast that it ought to drive out people who like it roughly the way it is. Neighbours on both sides adding a floor more than you presently have? Suddenly you might have an automatic right to add 2 if you like, but your neighbours might not be allowed to match you unless neighbours on other sides also gets with the program. So done carefully, changes are contained in pockets, and as a bonus you get neighbourhoods that are not all cookie cutter but can still retain a distinct character. Density would naturally "radiate" out from existing high density areas and transport as people take advantage of the more lenient limits of high averages of surrounding buildings, and you "automatically" get gradually declining heights rather than huge abrupt steps (e.g. near me there's been recent planning conflicts over a number of new 20-30 floor buildings almost directly adjacent to two-floor terraced single family homes. But the building pattern is like that in the first place only because planning for decades resisted gradual increases). Getting the patterns right to e.g. protect pockets for parks and essential services would take a lot of work, but you'd also have the benefit of being able to program visualisations to show immediate impacts on rights for neighbours etc. of allowing exceptions or when tweaking rules. And it'd allow streamlining approvals if more of the planning process is fully predictable.