5 ms·

"Residential-only zoning is "the bad kind of zoning"." I wish I could mind-meld with you and transmit the memories and experiences of growing up in a residenti

by rsync 4y ago

"Residential-only zoning is "the bad kind of zoning"." I wish I could mind-meld with you and transmit the memories and experiences of growing up in a residential area with no zoning. You know that sci-fi trope where the empath gets the memory dump and breaks away screaming and crying because they can't handle the trauma that comes through ? It would be like that. You think you'll get cute shops and pop-ups and delightful mixed-use and stimulating workshop spaces and crafty folks doing things artisanally. What you will actually get is half-built cars. Everywhere. You will get mobile homes and immobile RVs. You will get horses. Not rich-people horses, but "Grandma died and she had a horse and nobody knew what to do with it so we fenced part of the front yard" horses. Someone will disconnect from city sewer because they "know how to build septic". Someone will get llamas. You think I'm making this up and I promise you I am not. You've lived so long in a nicely regulated, rules-based order that you have no idea the kind of bullshit people engage in the minute the rules go away.

astrange 4y ago
I've been to Japan (+ several other countries that aren't the US). It's pretty nice there. As to whether or not zoning laws are what prevent people from owning horses, that's not clear to me. But a law saying you can't build a bookstore or apartment on the lot doesn't seem very related.
- jojobas 4y ago
  In Japan you just don't do any of those things due to exceptionally high, by European or American standard, social pressure do to The Right Thing. Or, at the very least, to not do anything out of the ordinary.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Out of Tokyo and San Francisco, which one requires all new buildings to go to subjective design reviews where your neighbors complain about shadows and tell you they don't like the color you plan to paint it and the style of windows facing the road? Hint: it's not Tokyo, which actually does have a fair number of old ugly poorly-maintained buildings scattered around random nice neighborhoods. Which is fine and not hurting anyone.
    - jojobas 4y ago
      I'm not talking about building houses in absence of personal contact, I'm talking about keeping horses, llamas and half-built cars in a residential area.
      - astrange 4y ago
        What's the difference that isn't a posthoc fallacy? Cause suburban Americans are famous busybodies. There's no way you can outdo them. They think anyone walking past their house is casing it for a robbery and will call the police and post on Nextdoor about it.
        jojobas 4y ago
        You don't seem to understand what I'm talking about. Imagine a HOA that has a say as what you wear, what you cook and what colour your curtains are, except it doesn't exist except in your mind through how you were brought up. A mere thought of your neighbor greeting you in a slightly abnormal manner because you are wearing bright green sneakers is enough for you not to buy them.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Tokyo actually does have rules about shadows: new building plans have to show how the new building will affect the sunlight of neighboring buildings. I think there's some limitations along these lines, but not a lot. But yeah, you can make your building as ugly as you want. Anyway, those older, ugly, poorly-maintained buildings eventually get torn down and replaced with something better, because the land value is very high. It's much more laissez-faire than the US and property rights are much, much stronger (the idea that you should mostly be able to do what you want with your property).
      - ryan_lane 4y ago
        I was recently looking to buy a house, and the agent said this is the reason for the weird shapes of housing. You can't build a building in such a way that reduces the light into bedrooms. There's a certain amount of light available for a room that allows it to be classified as a bedroom or not. Hence why you'll see places listed as a 3LDK with a "storage room", rather than a 4LDK in some cases.
  - ryan_lane 4y ago
    You can't buy a car unless you have proof you have a parking spot, so the cars part is out. Same deal with RVs. No street parking, no RV. There's no space for people to have a horse. There's plenty of places that I think everyone would call a "shack" made from old tin that's probably been around since the 50s or so, and is not really any different from a mobile home. So that exists here and people are generally OK with it. People wouldn't disconnect from the sewer to do septic. That isn't a zoning issue, it's a public health one, and it's obviously illegal. Honestly, none of the hypotheticals described have to do with zoning. Social pressure to do the right thing is a thing here, but not the only reason that things aren't super chaotic.
- rsync 4y ago
  "As to whether or not zoning laws are what prevent people from owning horses, that's not clear to me. But a law saying you can't build a bookstore or apartment ..." Everyone thinks they want to "get rid of zoning" but, of course, there are "obvious" rules we would all need to follow and "of course you can't do that" ... and it quickly becomes murky as to where "zoning" begins and ends and which regulations are "legitimate" or not. Either people can communally decide what rules they want to enact or they can't. If they can, restricting multi-family housing is as legitimate as anything else in a democracy. Like allowing or disallowing horses. Or limits to vehicles-on-blocks-in-the-front-yard. Or ad-hoc septic systems.
  - rcpt 4y ago
    > people can communally decide How big is this community? Who decides that?
lamontcg 4y ago
The article is about a "builders remedy" around zoning. It isn't going to change anything about cars, mobile homes, RVs, horses, llamas or sewers.
danaris 4y ago
> What you will actually get is half-built cars. Everywhere. You will get mobile homes and immobile RVs. You will get horses. Not rich-people horses, but "Grandma died and she had a horse and nobody knew what to do with it so we fenced part of the front yard" horses. Someone will disconnect from city sewer because they "know how to build septic". Someone will get llamas. a) It sounds like what you're saying is "you'll get poor people". There are several things wrong with that, the first one being the rampant classism inherent in it. b) So you'll get horses, and mobile homes. So what? Oooh, are you afraid your property values will drop? Deal with it. That's a small price to pay to enable the kinds of walkable neighborhoods mixed zoning allows, and the kind of rejuvenated communities it creates. c) Allowing residential and commercial zones to mix has nothing to do with people trying to build their own septic systems. All in all, it sounds to me like you experienced what happens when you live in a lower-income area, that happens not to have strong zoning laws, and your takeaway from that experience is that the lack of zoning caused the lower-income parts. Correlation is not causation, and not letting rich people stuff poor people away in a corner and forget about them is absolutely part of what we need to do.
- astrange 4y ago
  > a) It sounds like what you're saying is "you'll get poor people". It's more like trashy (rural coded?) middle class people I think. Collectors of broken cars and llamas aren't that poor! Similarly, you see pictures of people in, say, West Virginia with tons of stuff in their yard and kinda messy houses, but they're homeowners in a rich first world country and I suspect they're often pretty well off for the area. It's more of a personality thing. The confusing part for me was that there are mobile homes and RVs everywhere in Silicon Valley because there aren't enough homes due to the super strict zoning.
- rsync 4y ago
  All I am trying to share is that when rules are absent, behavior gets worse than you expect, in ways that beggar belief. That is not limited to “poor people” (your words).
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
mc32 4y ago
I think it's reasonable to invoke Chesterton's Fence here. We have to fully understand the potential consequences before enacting something potentially rife with unintended consequences before dismantling a system. We've lived with Zoning over a century and we ought to have an understanding of what unwanted changes could come about if that were suddenly lifted. It's not that we _should not_ do it but we should make changes in a measured, purposeful and understood manner so we don't end up like unregulated favelas (not in the sense of being mostly poor, but in the sense that anything goes.)

by rsync 4y ago

astrange 4y ago

I've been to Japan (+ several other countries that aren't the US). It's pretty nice there. As to whether or not zoning laws are what prevent people from owning horses, that's not clear to me. But a law saying you can't build a bookstore or apartment on the lot doesn't seem very related.

jojobas 4y ago
In Japan you just don't do any of those things due to exceptionally high, by European or American standard, social pressure do to The Right Thing. Or, at the very least, to not do anything out of the ordinary.
- astrange 4y ago
  Out of Tokyo and San Francisco, which one requires all new buildings to go to subjective design reviews where your neighbors complain about shadows and tell you they don't like the color you plan to paint it and the style of windows facing the road? Hint: it's not Tokyo, which actually does have a fair number of old ugly poorly-maintained buildings scattered around random nice neighborhoods. Which is fine and not hurting anyone.
  - jojobas 4y ago
    I'm not talking about building houses in absence of personal contact, I'm talking about keeping horses, llamas and half-built cars in a residential area.
    - astrange 4y ago
      What's the difference that isn't a posthoc fallacy? Cause suburban Americans are famous busybodies. There's no way you can outdo them. They think anyone walking past their house is casing it for a robbery and will call the police and post on Nextdoor about it.
      - jojobas 4y ago
        You don't seem to understand what I'm talking about. Imagine a HOA that has a say as what you wear, what you cook and what colour your curtains are, except it doesn't exist except in your mind through how you were brought up. A mere thought of your neighbor greeting you in a slightly abnormal manner because you are wearing bright green sneakers is enough for you not to buy them.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Tokyo actually does have rules about shadows: new building plans have to show how the new building will affect the sunlight of neighboring buildings. I think there's some limitations along these lines, but not a lot. But yeah, you can make your building as ugly as you want. Anyway, those older, ugly, poorly-maintained buildings eventually get torn down and replaced with something better, because the land value is very high. It's much more laissez-faire than the US and property rights are much, much stronger (the idea that you should mostly be able to do what you want with your property).
    - ryan_lane 4y ago
      I was recently looking to buy a house, and the agent said this is the reason for the weird shapes of housing. You can't build a building in such a way that reduces the light into bedrooms. There's a certain amount of light available for a room that allows it to be classified as a bedroom or not. Hence why you'll see places listed as a 3LDK with a "storage room", rather than a 4LDK in some cases.
- ryan_lane 4y ago
  You can't buy a car unless you have proof you have a parking spot, so the cars part is out. Same deal with RVs. No street parking, no RV. There's no space for people to have a horse. There's plenty of places that I think everyone would call a "shack" made from old tin that's probably been around since the 50s or so, and is not really any different from a mobile home. So that exists here and people are generally OK with it. People wouldn't disconnect from the sewer to do septic. That isn't a zoning issue, it's a public health one, and it's obviously illegal. Honestly, none of the hypotheticals described have to do with zoning. Social pressure to do the right thing is a thing here, but not the only reason that things aren't super chaotic.
rsync 4y ago
"As to whether or not zoning laws are what prevent people from owning horses, that's not clear to me. But a law saying you can't build a bookstore or apartment ..." Everyone thinks they want to "get rid of zoning" but, of course, there are "obvious" rules we would all need to follow and "of course you can't do that" ... and it quickly becomes murky as to where "zoning" begins and ends and which regulations are "legitimate" or not. Either people can communally decide what rules they want to enact or they can't. If they can, restricting multi-family housing is as legitimate as anything else in a democracy. Like allowing or disallowing horses. Or limits to vehicles-on-blocks-in-the-front-yard. Or ad-hoc septic systems.
- rcpt 4y ago
  > people can communally decide How big is this community? Who decides that?

lamontcg 4y ago

The article is about a "builders remedy" around zoning. It isn't going to change anything about cars, mobile homes, RVs, horses, llamas or sewers.

danaris 4y ago

> What you will actually get is half-built cars. Everywhere. You will get mobile homes and immobile RVs. You will get horses. Not rich-people horses, but "Grandma died and she had a horse and nobody knew what to do with it so we fenced part of the front yard" horses. Someone will disconnect from city sewer because they "know how to build septic". Someone will get llamas. a) It sounds like what you're saying is "you'll get poor people". There are several things wrong with that, the first one being the rampant classism inherent in it. b) So you'll get horses, and mobile homes. So what? Oooh, are you afraid your property values will drop? Deal with it. That's a small price to pay to enable the kinds of walkable neighborhoods mixed zoning allows, and the kind of rejuvenated communities it creates. c) Allowing residential and commercial zones to mix has nothing to do with people trying to build their own septic systems. All in all, it sounds to me like you experienced what happens when you live in a lower-income area, that happens not to have strong zoning laws, and your takeaway from that experience is that the lack of zoning caused the lower-income parts. Correlation is not causation, and not letting rich people stuff poor people away in a corner and forget about them is absolutely part of what we need to do.

astrange 4y ago
> a) It sounds like what you're saying is "you'll get poor people". It's more like trashy (rural coded?) middle class people I think. Collectors of broken cars and llamas aren't that poor! Similarly, you see pictures of people in, say, West Virginia with tons of stuff in their yard and kinda messy houses, but they're homeowners in a rich first world country and I suspect they're often pretty well off for the area. It's more of a personality thing. The confusing part for me was that there are mobile homes and RVs everywhere in Silicon Valley because there aren't enough homes due to the super strict zoning.
rsync 4y ago
All I am trying to share is that when rules are absent, behavior gets worse than you expect, in ways that beggar belief. That is not limited to “poor people” (your words).
- UncleMeat 4y ago

mc32 4y ago

I think it's reasonable to invoke Chesterton's Fence here. We have to fully understand the potential consequences before enacting something potentially rife with unintended consequences before dismantling a system. We've lived with Zoning over a century and we ought to have an understanding of what unwanted changes could come about if that were suddenly lifted. It's not that we _should not_ do it but we should make changes in a measured, purposeful and understood manner so we don't end up like unregulated favelas (not in the sense of being mostly poor, but in the sense that anything goes.)