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Yup -- there was a great article on HN a while back about why zoning in Japan works so much better than zoning in the US: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/
by warning26 4y ago
Yup -- there was a great article on HN a while back about why zoning in Japan works so much better than zoning in the US:
http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html
TL;DR: You can build housing almost anywhere if there exists demand.
- ianai 4y agoIn the US, too, it seems like there's a high amount of empty commercial/industrial real estate. Zoning keeps it from being usable by anything else. I also often wonder if something like a hybrid employee owned business+occupant owned housing could ever be bootstrapped. Something to function like a small village in the modern era/larger surrounding. But that wouldn't just be a hippy/cult commune.
- bsder 4y ago> In the US, too, it seems like there's a high amount of empty commercial/industrial real estate. Zoning keeps it from being usable by anything else. Nope, the finance agreements keep that space empty. Missing rent can generally be tacked onto the end of your financing. Lower rent causes the basis of your finance agreement to change and you will have to cough up cash. So, owners are willing to let spaces sit empty for years to avoid having to paying cash (which they probably don't have) to the bank. It's all musical chairs until higher interest rates cause a few failures which cascades through the entire system.