24 ms·

Looking at other countries like Japan with like barely any zoning laws, this looks great, I hope it leads to more mixed cities again and more walkable/liveable

Looking at other countries like Japan with like barely any zoning laws, this looks great, I hope it leads to more mixed cities again and more walkable/liveable areas like before WW2. It is funny that America land of the free had so many restrictions, building up hundreds of zoning laws across the country did a lot of bad and led to a lot of urban sprawl leading to very poor cities and towns that literally cannot pay for themselves. I think we need some zoning laws though, and I'm sure these laws will come back faster then people expect mostly from bad planning or large bribes whichever. But hopefully some good helpful zoning laws will stick.

programmarchy 4y ago
Another data point on lax zoning laws is Houston, which is awful and completely unwalkable. It’s not cool when someone builds a concrete plant next to your house either.
- steveklabnik 4y ago
  One thing that's interesting about Japanese zoning is that I wouldn't describe it as "no zoning," (for that matter I wouldn't in Houston either because that's more rhetorical than reality but anyway). They key is that they don't do Euclidian, or exclusive zoning. You can build housing in almost every single one of their (iirc) fifteen different zoning designations. So to US norms, this feels like "no zoning," but it's still restrictive in many ways. Just not in a way that says "only housing here" or "no housing here." (again on that last one, in the vast majority of cases, but not strictly speaking all.)
- ignormies 4y ago
  Houston has "zoning but we're not calling it zoning" zoning laws https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k
LynxInLA 4y ago
I'm not an expert, but I lean towards relaxing zoning laws but not getting rid of them completely. Look to Houston to see what happens when there are no zoning laws at all.
- shuckles 4y ago
  There are a myriad of ways Houston does control land use beyond zoning such as minimum parking requirements and private covenants.
  - bilbo0s 4y ago
    Yeah. In Houston, we have what is effectively zoning. It's just that we do it at the neighborhood level. You want to go into the museum district or third ward and develop x, or y, or z? No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you. Hint: Once they gentrify to the point of being called "The Museum District", they will definitely not be agreeing with you. I saw someone above throw out a figure of 3 or 4 hundred k as a price point and I had to chuckle. If all you want to do is build a low-rise for workforce housing? Yeah, this neighborhood wouldn't care if you had the money or not. Piss off peasant. The people in the Museum District no longer wish to reside in proximity with your kind. Some neighborhood get togethers you almost get the impression that people would like to put gates to the city at all the 610 exits. Keep the riff raff out. And don't even get me started about what I hear from friends behind the gates down Sunset. In Houston, the zoning is way worse than in other cities. Because people can literally stop anyone they want. No city council permission necessary.
    - somethoughts 4y ago
      What I've noticed too - when I've visited a couple of times - in addition once you move out of the city center, in the suburbs surrounding Houston, residential developments with strict HOAs are pretty much the de facto standard for residential developments.
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      > No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you. That's what zoning laws are.
- cal5k 4y ago
  Median sale price in Houston is currently $310,500, vs $441,250 in Sacramento, $917,500 in LA and $1.3MM in SF. Aesthetic judgments aside, seems like a winning strategy for housing affordability?
hibikir 4y ago
This has little to do with the existence of zoning laws themselves, but the specific zones that they define. Japan has zones, so does Spain. But there's just nothing anywhere near as Restrictive as most US cities' R1 zone. Many places have R2s and R3s that are still more restrictive than the least dense thing than a Spanish city has. Remove zones alone, and HOAs will get areas into legally binding covenants that are also just as tough as their current zoning regulation. To solve the US density issue, localities have to be severely restricted in what they can block, but we also have to look at the bigger picture: What is making people want to restrict their neighborhood to extremely low density suburbs? The answers are very uncomfortable.
- nlavezzo 4y ago
  > The answers are very uncomfortable. Are they? Isn't it possible that people who live in beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around, want to keep them that way for primarily those reasons? Of course their desires alone shouldn't be the final word on proposed changes to codes, but implying that all of these homeowners are primarily driven by prejudice is a pretty big leap given the many obvious benefits of the status quo for them. I imagine you could take almost any demographic and put them in a low density neighborhood with big yards, trees, low traffic, and neighbors that they've known for decades, and they're going to resist change.
  - jackson1442 4y ago
    You can have all this (and more!) in cities as well. Lived in Seattle for a bit and my apartment had several neighborhoods of single-family homes within a couple blocks: each with mature trees, yards, and low traffic streets. Sure, the yard maybe isn't as massive as you can get in a suburb, but there's still plenty of space (and far more public parks). Because they were so close to dense housing, they also had the added benefits of public transit and being walking distance to several grocery stores. Much better than suburbia in my opinion.
    - hcurtiss 4y ago
twelvechairs 4y ago
> Japan with like barely any zoning laws, Japan has strong national zoning laws that are very strictly applied. The biggest differences are the zones allow for a looser range of outcomes than the American ones, and the zoning approach is not controlled by local government (which often is NIMBYs)
BenFranklin100 4y ago
Tokyo is not a free-for-all. It does zone for different uses by forbidding certain uses above a certain nuisance or hazard level. For instance, in many areas you can’t just plop down a chemical factory. The cool thing about Tokyo zoning though is that anything below a nuisance level is pretty much allowed. Want to build a house next to a dump or above a discotheque? Go for it, no one is going to stop you.
- anotheracctfo 4y ago
  "I live above a bowling alley, and below another bowling alley" Rent has gotten so outrageous that this is a good thing now.
  - mrfox321 4y ago
    "Don't ask me how the economy works"
  - steveklabnik 4y ago
    Some people have different preferences when it comes to housing. My place overlooks a freeway. I really, truly dislike that freeway. But one thing I do like about it is the noise that it makes, even at night. I find it very hard to fall asleep in silence. Oh and I should mention that most of the units in my building do not face the freeway, and therefore, those who prefer quiet can also get that, even in the same building.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - nemo44x 4y ago
      You should really check the air quality you're breathing. I agree about sound, but there's other ways to generate it. Seriously though, check the air quality you breath.
      - steveklabnik 4y ago
parkaboy 4y ago
As yet anothor note in this thread about Houston (from a long-time Houstonian) and less in direct response to OP -- the lack of zoning bit is actually a bit more complicated than at first glance. While it's true there is no zoning, there are two other forces at work that exacerbate the sprawl issues here: (1) Minimum parking lot size requirements (as others mentioned). Commercial properties are required to have X amount of parking spaces available. (2) Political issues and how money gets invested: despite public "protests" (maybe more like "kvetching"), there's continued investment in freeway expansion / car-centric infrastructure due to lobbying/other political efforts instead of public transportation. Our sprawl is more due to (1) and (2) rather than lack of zoning regulation. But also to Houston's credit, things are slowly (SLOWLY) getting better.
- culi 4y ago
  > Minimum parking lot size requirements This one irks me the most. we have 8 parking spots for every car and giant shopping malls are surrounded by parking lots that take up twice their size and are 50% empty for 95% of the time (more if you count night time)
29athrowaway 4y ago
They demolish everything every 30 years
zugi 4y ago
> like Japan with like barely any zoning laws I read an article a year or two ago (maybe posted here?) about Japan's zoning laws and they just make sense. - Rather than dozens of categories, there are just 4 or 5 in increasing amounts of annoyance (e.g residence -> retail/office -> manufacturing) and areas approved for one level can always be used by lower levels. - The laws are uniform nationally. - Zoning decisions get made at higher levels (prefecture or national?) so they can consider what the whole region needs, and get less NIMBYism / maximize-my-near-term-property-value-ism. I don't recall whether they even have the distinct single-family versus multi-family dwelling categorization that seems to cause so much of the housing supply shortage in the U.S.
- asciimike 4y ago
  Was it http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html by chance?
graphitegrey 4y ago
This video provides a great overview of zoning in Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk
zajio1am 4y ago
I think that many US people have too optimistic idea about zoning laws in other countries. In many countries there are floor area ratio requirements in zoning plans and if you have ratio limit 0.2 on <1000 m^2 land lots, you cannot really build anything much different than single family housing.
twblalock 4y ago
Tokyo has lax zoning, but it looks the way it does only because people who live there want it to look that way. Houston, which also has loose zoning, looks totally different because most Texans want to live in suburbs and drive cars. In other words, zoning laws are generally an expression of what the majority of people already wanted. I can tell you for sure that in most parts of California (and most of the rest of the USA) the majority of people want to live in a detached single-family home that they own, and prefer driving cars to public transit. People who prefer a denser arrangement are an especially vocal minority on the internet, but if you put it to a vote, you'd end up with pretty much what we have today -- the fact that people wanted them is why they got built in the first place!
- shiftpgdn 4y ago
  Texans don't want to live in suburbs in drive cars, they have no choice because it's illegal to build dense housing via deed covenants and city ordinances that work in place of zoning. The most expensive and desirable housing (not counting the hyper-wealthy enclaves) in Houston is also the most walkable and dense.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    Like most discussions about zoning, this mixes up cause and effect. Certain types of housing are illegal because people don’t like them, and voted to ban them! Zoning laws don’t just magically appear out of nowhere.
chrisfinazzo 4y ago
If I can make a nuanced point... Suburban sprawl is fine and coming from NJ, going to a place where it doesn't exist feels very strange. My brother lives just outside Charlotte - outside of the airport and city proper, you hit what I would consider rural areas within roughly 20 minutes. It's a thing...I guess?
- runarberg 4y ago
  Whats wrong with having rural areas close to the city proper? In Berlin (one of Europe’s largest cities) you don’t need to go more the 10 km from Neukölln (one of it’s densest neighborhoods) before you hit the country side. In Seattle the Snoqualmie River and the Duvall valley is a beautiful countryside only 20 miles from the city center. Why would you want to sacrifice that for a sub-optimal housing sprawl with horrible carbon footprint? For people that like the quiet living they can live in a nearby town (Duvall has around 10,000 people living in the town), the density of the town means you’ll probably be close to a grocery store and other amenities, and probably even a bus line or a commuter train to the nearby city if you need to commute to work. Meanwhile the countryside is open for everyone (including city dwellers) to enjoy. It feels like sacrificing this for boring monotonous suburban sprawl (as is tradition in California) benefits nobody while ruining a good thing many have.
sleepybrett 4y ago
I dunno, I feel like things like heavy manufacturing, smokestack etc. Should have their zoning controlled, everything else.. go nuts. I just don't want to breathe emissions.
andrepd 4y ago
It's disingenuous/dishonest to paint it like that. Japan for example has extremely strict controls on on-street parking: if you want to buy a car you need to prove you own the parking space to put it. Try to make that fly in the US.

programmarchy 4y ago

Another data point on lax zoning laws is Houston, which is awful and completely unwalkable. It’s not cool when someone builds a concrete plant next to your house either.

steveklabnik 4y ago
One thing that's interesting about Japanese zoning is that I wouldn't describe it as "no zoning," (for that matter I wouldn't in Houston either because that's more rhetorical than reality but anyway). They key is that they don't do Euclidian, or exclusive zoning. You can build housing in almost every single one of their (iirc) fifteen different zoning designations. So to US norms, this feels like "no zoning," but it's still restrictive in many ways. Just not in a way that says "only housing here" or "no housing here." (again on that last one, in the vast majority of cases, but not strictly speaking all.)
ignormies 4y ago
Houston has "zoning but we're not calling it zoning" zoning laws https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k

LynxInLA 4y ago

I'm not an expert, but I lean towards relaxing zoning laws but not getting rid of them completely. Look to Houston to see what happens when there are no zoning laws at all.

shuckles 4y ago
There are a myriad of ways Houston does control land use beyond zoning such as minimum parking requirements and private covenants.
- bilbo0s 4y ago
  Yeah. In Houston, we have what is effectively zoning. It's just that we do it at the neighborhood level. You want to go into the museum district or third ward and develop x, or y, or z? No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you. Hint: Once they gentrify to the point of being called "The Museum District", they will definitely not be agreeing with you. I saw someone above throw out a figure of 3 or 4 hundred k as a price point and I had to chuckle. If all you want to do is build a low-rise for workforce housing? Yeah, this neighborhood wouldn't care if you had the money or not. Piss off peasant. The people in the Museum District no longer wish to reside in proximity with your kind. Some neighborhood get togethers you almost get the impression that people would like to put gates to the city at all the 610 exits. Keep the riff raff out. And don't even get me started about what I hear from friends behind the gates down Sunset. In Houston, the zoning is way worse than in other cities. Because people can literally stop anyone they want. No city council permission necessary.
  - somethoughts 4y ago
    What I've noticed too - when I've visited a couple of times - in addition once you move out of the city center, in the suburbs surrounding Houston, residential developments with strict HOAs are pretty much the de facto standard for residential developments.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you. That's what zoning laws are.
cal5k 4y ago
Median sale price in Houston is currently $310,500, vs $441,250 in Sacramento, $917,500 in LA and $1.3MM in SF. Aesthetic judgments aside, seems like a winning strategy for housing affordability?

hibikir 4y ago

This has little to do with the existence of zoning laws themselves, but the specific zones that they define. Japan has zones, so does Spain. But there's just nothing anywhere near as Restrictive as most US cities' R1 zone. Many places have R2s and R3s that are still more restrictive than the least dense thing than a Spanish city has. Remove zones alone, and HOAs will get areas into legally binding covenants that are also just as tough as their current zoning regulation. To solve the US density issue, localities have to be severely restricted in what they can block, but we also have to look at the bigger picture: What is making people want to restrict their neighborhood to extremely low density suburbs? The answers are very uncomfortable.

nlavezzo 4y ago
> The answers are very uncomfortable. Are they? Isn't it possible that people who live in beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around, want to keep them that way for primarily those reasons? Of course their desires alone shouldn't be the final word on proposed changes to codes, but implying that all of these homeowners are primarily driven by prejudice is a pretty big leap given the many obvious benefits of the status quo for them. I imagine you could take almost any demographic and put them in a low density neighborhood with big yards, trees, low traffic, and neighbors that they've known for decades, and they're going to resist change.
- jackson1442 4y ago
  You can have all this (and more!) in cities as well. Lived in Seattle for a bit and my apartment had several neighborhoods of single-family homes within a couple blocks: each with mature trees, yards, and low traffic streets. Sure, the yard maybe isn't as massive as you can get in a suburb, but there's still plenty of space (and far more public parks). Because they were so close to dense housing, they also had the added benefits of public transit and being walking distance to several grocery stores. Much better than suburbia in my opinion.
  - hcurtiss 4y ago

twelvechairs 4y ago

> Japan with like barely any zoning laws, Japan has strong national zoning laws that are very strictly applied. The biggest differences are the zones allow for a looser range of outcomes than the American ones, and the zoning approach is not controlled by local government (which often is NIMBYs)

BenFranklin100 4y ago

Tokyo is not a free-for-all. It does zone for different uses by forbidding certain uses above a certain nuisance or hazard level. For instance, in many areas you can’t just plop down a chemical factory. The cool thing about Tokyo zoning though is that anything below a nuisance level is pretty much allowed. Want to build a house next to a dump or above a discotheque? Go for it, no one is going to stop you.

anotheracctfo 4y ago
"I live above a bowling alley, and below another bowling alley" Rent has gotten so outrageous that this is a good thing now.
- mrfox321 4y ago
  "Don't ask me how the economy works"
- steveklabnik 4y ago
  Some people have different preferences when it comes to housing. My place overlooks a freeway. I really, truly dislike that freeway. But one thing I do like about it is the noise that it makes, even at night. I find it very hard to fall asleep in silence. Oh and I should mention that most of the units in my building do not face the freeway, and therefore, those who prefer quiet can also get that, even in the same building.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    You should really check the air quality you're breathing. I agree about sound, but there's other ways to generate it. Seriously though, check the air quality you breath.
    - steveklabnik 4y ago

parkaboy 4y ago

As yet anothor note in this thread about Houston (from a long-time Houstonian) and less in direct response to OP -- the lack of zoning bit is actually a bit more complicated than at first glance. While it's true there is no zoning, there are two other forces at work that exacerbate the sprawl issues here: (1) Minimum parking lot size requirements (as others mentioned). Commercial properties are required to have X amount of parking spaces available. (2) Political issues and how money gets invested: despite public "protests" (maybe more like "kvetching"), there's continued investment in freeway expansion / car-centric infrastructure due to lobbying/other political efforts instead of public transportation. Our sprawl is more due to (1) and (2) rather than lack of zoning regulation. But also to Houston's credit, things are slowly (SLOWLY) getting better.

culi 4y ago
> Minimum parking lot size requirements This one irks me the most. we have 8 parking spots for every car and giant shopping malls are surrounded by parking lots that take up twice their size and are 50% empty for 95% of the time (more if you count night time)

29athrowaway 4y ago

They demolish everything every 30 years

zugi 4y ago

> like Japan with like barely any zoning laws I read an article a year or two ago (maybe posted here?) about Japan's zoning laws and they just make sense. - Rather than dozens of categories, there are just 4 or 5 in increasing amounts of annoyance (e.g residence -> retail/office -> manufacturing) and areas approved for one level can always be used by lower levels. - The laws are uniform nationally. - Zoning decisions get made at higher levels (prefecture or national?) so they can consider what the whole region needs, and get less NIMBYism / maximize-my-near-term-property-value-ism. I don't recall whether they even have the distinct single-family versus multi-family dwelling categorization that seems to cause so much of the housing supply shortage in the U.S.

asciimike 4y ago
Was it http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html by chance?

graphitegrey 4y ago

This video provides a great overview of zoning in Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk

zajio1am 4y ago

I think that many US people have too optimistic idea about zoning laws in other countries. In many countries there are floor area ratio requirements in zoning plans and if you have ratio limit 0.2 on <1000 m^2 land lots, you cannot really build anything much different than single family housing.

twblalock 4y ago

Tokyo has lax zoning, but it looks the way it does only because people who live there want it to look that way. Houston, which also has loose zoning, looks totally different because most Texans want to live in suburbs and drive cars. In other words, zoning laws are generally an expression of what the majority of people already wanted. I can tell you for sure that in most parts of California (and most of the rest of the USA) the majority of people want to live in a detached single-family home that they own, and prefer driving cars to public transit. People who prefer a denser arrangement are an especially vocal minority on the internet, but if you put it to a vote, you'd end up with pretty much what we have today -- the fact that people wanted them is why they got built in the first place!

shiftpgdn 4y ago
Texans don't want to live in suburbs in drive cars, they have no choice because it's illegal to build dense housing via deed covenants and city ordinances that work in place of zoning. The most expensive and desirable housing (not counting the hyper-wealthy enclaves) in Houston is also the most walkable and dense.
- twblalock 4y ago
  Like most discussions about zoning, this mixes up cause and effect. Certain types of housing are illegal because people don’t like them, and voted to ban them! Zoning laws don’t just magically appear out of nowhere.

chrisfinazzo 4y ago

If I can make a nuanced point... Suburban sprawl is fine and coming from NJ, going to a place where it doesn't exist feels very strange. My brother lives just outside Charlotte - outside of the airport and city proper, you hit what I would consider rural areas within roughly 20 minutes. It's a thing...I guess?

runarberg 4y ago
Whats wrong with having rural areas close to the city proper? In Berlin (one of Europe’s largest cities) you don’t need to go more the 10 km from Neukölln (one of it’s densest neighborhoods) before you hit the country side. In Seattle the Snoqualmie River and the Duvall valley is a beautiful countryside only 20 miles from the city center. Why would you want to sacrifice that for a sub-optimal housing sprawl with horrible carbon footprint? For people that like the quiet living they can live in a nearby town (Duvall has around 10,000 people living in the town), the density of the town means you’ll probably be close to a grocery store and other amenities, and probably even a bus line or a commuter train to the nearby city if you need to commute to work. Meanwhile the countryside is open for everyone (including city dwellers) to enjoy. It feels like sacrificing this for boring monotonous suburban sprawl (as is tradition in California) benefits nobody while ruining a good thing many have.

sleepybrett 4y ago

I dunno, I feel like things like heavy manufacturing, smokestack etc. Should have their zoning controlled, everything else.. go nuts. I just don't want to breathe emissions.

andrepd 4y ago

It's disingenuous/dishonest to paint it like that. Japan for example has extremely strict controls on on-street parking: if you want to buy a car you need to prove you own the parking space to put it. Try to make that fly in the US.