4 ms·

I loathe the suburbs and car-only infrastructure. It's backwards, bone-headed, and downright treacherously stupid. In addition to zoning reform we should nation

I loathe the suburbs and car-only infrastructure. It's backwards, bone-headed, and downright treacherously stupid. In addition to zoning reform we should nationally remove mandatory parking minimums. Hell, if anything we should de-zone strip malls and any new development that practically requires a car to get to (implementation details fuzzy). But I do have sympathy for people who move to a location or community for the aspects of that location or community and want to preserve that. It's immature to not consider that. We're also essentially just setting goal posts for what development is ok or not ok and I do think this will give further rise to private developments and incorporations that can't legally be challenged here - i.e. more gated communities. There is real harm done, and it is anti-democratic in some ways to take state or national laws and have those supercede (micromanage in this case) local building rules or regulations. For example, where I live you have to go through local neighborhood zoning review to do things like change your door or even tear down or modify your home. We live in a historic neighborhood. Previously the government in the 60s or so wanted to tear it down and build a highway through it. In this case, the local community stopped the government from imposing a monumentally stupid new construction which would have "increased GDP" and whatever other simplistic bullshit economic metrics people use. Certainly with that being said this doesn't also blanket excuse local entities from being "anti-development", but we probably shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If a community neighborhood is walkable and charming with cute little shops and maybe mountains nearby or a university, guess what? It's just expensive. Develop somewhere else. Otherwise when a big corporation or the governments wants to come through and "increase land value" you will just have to do what they say with no recourse.

LargeWu 4y ago
Cities can in fact maintain zoning powers if they can prove that their zoning regulations are equitable. Protection of a historic neighborhood could theoretically be allowed, but must be balanced with other interests.
- ericmay 4y ago
  Yea but that's just "who knows" which is no more right or wrong than local residents deciding that something should or should not be. Easy example: we are going to put a highway through this historically black neighborhood because the interests of the residents must be balanced with the economic interests of the state and the jobs created by new highway construction. And now we have lost those neighborhoods and we're dependent on cars.
arrosenberg 4y ago
> There is real harm done, and it is anti-democratic in some ways to take state or national laws and have those supercede (micromanage in this case) local building rules or regulations. You could just as easily argue it's pro-democratic because it lets the State break the power of the local, petty gentry to keep people from moving in.
- ericmay 4y ago
  I'm not concerned about "petty gentry" or whatever silly class warfare terms people use. It's not only boring but harms progress by pitting people against each other. You can of course argue that things are or are not democratic. That's part of my point. Overriding local, more direct democracy (in theory) could be anti-democratic in my view. But doing something like having highly restrictive zoning laws such that you keep certain people out seems probably anti-democratic at best and prejudice almost certainly. But you can make cases for both. For every "We don't like the zoning because it keeps the place expensive" there's "we don't care what the residents want this toxic waste dump has to go somewhere.
  - arrosenberg 4y ago
    > Overriding local, more direct democracy (in theory) could be anti-democratic in my view. Your theory is bunk, that's my point. What pits people against each other are exclusionary housing laws that the wealthy use to keep poor people separate from them, not the words we use to describe that choice. > But you can make cases for both. For every "We don't like the zoning because it keeps the place expensive" there's "we don't care what the residents want this toxic waste dump has to go somewhere. No you can't, because the people who promote exclusionary housing laws always want to solve the issue by putting the toxic waste dump where the poor live. Never mind that the wealth in their community is directly correlated to generating the toxic waste in the first place. When a wealthy elite foist all of their externalities on the masses, that's oligarchy baby. It's fine to hold that as your ideal, I'm not a purist, but don't claim that's democracy by any modern definition.
    - ericmay 4y ago
HDThoreaun 4y ago
I don't see how a small minority of wealthy people voting to keep everyone else out of their community by making it prohibitively expensive is democratic.
- ericmay 4y ago
  You’re looking at the specific case and not the general case, like in the 1950s when black communities in cities like Columbus were bulldozed for highways and had no recourse. Same line of argument.
TulliusCicero 4y ago
> There is real harm done, and it is anti-democratic in some ways to take state or national laws and have those supercede (micromanage in this case) local building rules or regulations. No, it's really not. There's nothing fundamentally anti-democratic about higher government overriding lower government. Often, deciding rules at a lower level doesn't work well, and this is a good example of that. Deciding housing density at the neighborhood or city level has been an abject failure, because every city is incentivized to benefit from the metro area booming job market while not shouldering responsibility for housing all the new people coming in. Pushing that burden onto the other cities is irresponsible, but that's what they all try to do, with the result being that hardly any cities build sufficient housing. It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-level authority rather than the state, but the state is still better than the city.
- ericmay 4y ago
  > There's nothing fundamentally anti-democratic about higher government overriding lower government. > It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-level authority rather than the state, but the state is still better than the city. What about if the state of Ohio overrides Columbus' gun restrictions? (ex) What if the state of Nevada mandates cities provide 2 parking spaces per dwelling? You're just picking and choosing when the "higher" government overrides the "local" government. When you agree with it, it's good. When you disagree it's presumably still good right? > Deciding housing density at the neighborhood or city level has been an abject failure It's been a failure for one simple reason, which is what we build car-only infrastructure. You can't build density and car-only infrastructure. It won't work.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    > What about if the state of Ohio overrides Columbus' gun restrictions? (ex) > What if the state of Nevada mandates cities provide 2 parking spaces per dwelling? Those are bad because the ideas are bad, not because they're "anti-democratic". > You're just picking and choosing when the "higher" government overrides the "local" government. When you agree with it, it's good. When you disagree it's presumably still good right? You're shifting the argument. I was talking about anti-democratic or not, not good or bad. Just because a law was passed democratically doesn't mean it's a good idea. Please try to stay on your own topic.

LargeWu 4y ago

Cities can in fact maintain zoning powers if they can prove that their zoning regulations are equitable. Protection of a historic neighborhood could theoretically be allowed, but must be balanced with other interests.

ericmay 4y ago
Yea but that's just "who knows" which is no more right or wrong than local residents deciding that something should or should not be. Easy example: we are going to put a highway through this historically black neighborhood because the interests of the residents must be balanced with the economic interests of the state and the jobs created by new highway construction. And now we have lost those neighborhoods and we're dependent on cars.

arrosenberg 4y ago

> There is real harm done, and it is anti-democratic in some ways to take state or national laws and have those supercede (micromanage in this case) local building rules or regulations. You could just as easily argue it's pro-democratic because it lets the State break the power of the local, petty gentry to keep people from moving in.

ericmay 4y ago
I'm not concerned about "petty gentry" or whatever silly class warfare terms people use. It's not only boring but harms progress by pitting people against each other. You can of course argue that things are or are not democratic. That's part of my point. Overriding local, more direct democracy (in theory) could be anti-democratic in my view. But doing something like having highly restrictive zoning laws such that you keep certain people out seems probably anti-democratic at best and prejudice almost certainly. But you can make cases for both. For every "We don't like the zoning because it keeps the place expensive" there's "we don't care what the residents want this toxic waste dump has to go somewhere.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  > Overriding local, more direct democracy (in theory) could be anti-democratic in my view. Your theory is bunk, that's my point. What pits people against each other are exclusionary housing laws that the wealthy use to keep poor people separate from them, not the words we use to describe that choice. > But you can make cases for both. For every "We don't like the zoning because it keeps the place expensive" there's "we don't care what the residents want this toxic waste dump has to go somewhere. No you can't, because the people who promote exclusionary housing laws always want to solve the issue by putting the toxic waste dump where the poor live. Never mind that the wealth in their community is directly correlated to generating the toxic waste in the first place. When a wealthy elite foist all of their externalities on the masses, that's oligarchy baby. It's fine to hold that as your ideal, I'm not a purist, but don't claim that's democracy by any modern definition.
  - ericmay 4y ago

HDThoreaun 4y ago

I don't see how a small minority of wealthy people voting to keep everyone else out of their community by making it prohibitively expensive is democratic.

ericmay 4y ago
You’re looking at the specific case and not the general case, like in the 1950s when black communities in cities like Columbus were bulldozed for highways and had no recourse. Same line of argument.

TulliusCicero 4y ago

> There is real harm done, and it is anti-democratic in some ways to take state or national laws and have those supercede (micromanage in this case) local building rules or regulations. No, it's really not. There's nothing fundamentally anti-democratic about higher government overriding lower government. Often, deciding rules at a lower level doesn't work well, and this is a good example of that. Deciding housing density at the neighborhood or city level has been an abject failure, because every city is incentivized to benefit from the metro area booming job market while not shouldering responsibility for housing all the new people coming in. Pushing that burden onto the other cities is irresponsible, but that's what they all try to do, with the result being that hardly any cities build sufficient housing. It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-level authority rather than the state, but the state is still better than the city.

ericmay 4y ago
> There's nothing fundamentally anti-democratic about higher government overriding lower government. > It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-level authority rather than the state, but the state is still better than the city. What about if the state of Ohio overrides Columbus' gun restrictions? (ex) What if the state of Nevada mandates cities provide 2 parking spaces per dwelling? You're just picking and choosing when the "higher" government overrides the "local" government. When you agree with it, it's good. When you disagree it's presumably still good right? > Deciding housing density at the neighborhood or city level has been an abject failure It's been a failure for one simple reason, which is what we build car-only infrastructure. You can't build density and car-only infrastructure. It won't work.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  > What about if the state of Ohio overrides Columbus' gun restrictions? (ex) > What if the state of Nevada mandates cities provide 2 parking spaces per dwelling? Those are bad because the ideas are bad, not because they're "anti-democratic". > You're just picking and choosing when the "higher" government overrides the "local" government. When you agree with it, it's good. When you disagree it's presumably still good right? You're shifting the argument. I was talking about anti-democratic or not, not good or bad. Just because a law was passed democratically doesn't mean it's a good idea. Please try to stay on your own topic.