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The lack of zoning directly contributed to the damage or destruction of more than 150 homes during the 2020 houston chemical explosion. Zoning exists for very

The lack of zoning directly contributed to the damage or destruction of more than 150 homes during the 2020 houston chemical explosion. Zoning exists for very important life safety reasons the market cannot account for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Houston_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Houston_explosion

astrange 3y ago
That can be dealt with by environmental laws. Zoning exists to keep minorities out of whites-only neighborhoods. As in, when zoning was implemented this is the reason they said they were doing it and you can just go back and read the meeting minutes. As an example, the most famous restaurant in California is called "French Laundry" because "French laundries" were a way of signaling they were owned by white people, so white customers could go to them without accidentally supporting a Chinese immigrant business. But there's no environmental risk in allowing a corner store or a Chinese laundry in a residential neighborhood.
- karaterobot 3y ago
  Could you say more about your claim that zoning exists to keep minorities out of white-only neighborhoods? Specifically, do you mean to say that all zoning laws exist for this purpose, or only some of them? And do you mean that all zoning laws still exist for this purpose, or that that was their original intent? And I assume your claim is specifically meant to apply with respect to the U.S., and not to other countries who've had zoning laws in place for thousands of years. Hypothetically, would you say that the U.S. would have ignored the precedent for zoning laws that came from, e.g., England if they did not provide a convenient way to keep minorities out of whites-only neighborhoods? Would we be living in a zoning-free society if not for racism?
  - astrange 3y ago
    > Could you say more about your claim that zoning exists to keep minorities out of white-only neighborhoods? As I said, you can just go read the meeting minutes when they were introduced in the early 20th century and it's why they said they were doing it. But there's a book called The Color of Law about it. > And do you mean that all zoning laws still exist for this purpose, or that that was their original intent? They still exist because they haven't been removed yet and the SCOTUS precedent (Euclid v Ambler) that authorizes them hasn't been overruled. Racial covenants on individual properties were removed, but not that. > precedent for zoning laws that came from, e.g., England To be clear, England doesn't have zoning, it has /much worse ideas/ where you can't do anything without planning permission and the US is a big improvement over it. (Urban growth boundaries are okay though, but the US has national parks so we're cooler.) > Would we be living in a zoning-free society if not for racism? We would still have things that you probably think of as zoning but are not actually zoning. For instance, it's legal to have a corner store in a housing district in any given old quaint European country, and Japan has some light forms of zoning strictly controlled at the national level so individual cities don't get big ideas about becoming exclusive.
pesfandiar 3y ago
The idea is to allow denser housing in residential areas, not completely removing any restrictions.
whimsicalism 3y ago
> Zoning exists for very important life safety reasons the market cannot account for. Action/omission bias - it is very important to life safety to be housed, yet zoning reduces the number of people housed.
inglor_cz 3y ago
"Do not build residential buildings in unsafe places" is not the same kind of zoning as "do not build apartment units because I don't want to live within walking distance of some poorer people".
CuriousCosmic 3y ago
When people say get rid of zoning, generally what they mean is to move to an intensity based zoning scheme. i.e. One where the zone indicates the "maximum" type of construction that may be built. i.e. in low rise residential zones you can only build low rise housing and small shops, in high rise residential you can still build low rise residential, in commercial you can build large commercial spaces but you can still build residential, and in "light industrial" zones you can build non-hazardous industrial structures but you can still build everything else. However for full blown industrial you can only build industrial due to the hazards. In practice that looks a lot like just getting rid of zoning entirely with the exception that traffic management works out a little better and actually dangerous industrial sites are still kept away from everything else.
jarjoura 3y ago
I think there's a huge difference when zoning in broad-strokes ways (ie residential here, and dangerous chemical plants here) and zoning in micro-targeted, social engineering ways, (ie. mixed-use only here, condos here, single-family here, townhomes here, etc.) The hyper-growth 1940s and 1950s that tore up a century of development across a lot of cities left us empowered activists of the 1960s and 1970s that overcorrected policies and laws and gave way too much power to neighborhoods to dictate all kinds of things they really shouldn't have had the power to dictate.

astrange 3y ago

That can be dealt with by environmental laws. Zoning exists to keep minorities out of whites-only neighborhoods. As in, when zoning was implemented this is the reason they said they were doing it and you can just go back and read the meeting minutes. As an example, the most famous restaurant in California is called "French Laundry" because "French laundries" were a way of signaling they were owned by white people, so white customers could go to them without accidentally supporting a Chinese immigrant business. But there's no environmental risk in allowing a corner store or a Chinese laundry in a residential neighborhood.

karaterobot 3y ago
Could you say more about your claim that zoning exists to keep minorities out of white-only neighborhoods? Specifically, do you mean to say that all zoning laws exist for this purpose, or only some of them? And do you mean that all zoning laws still exist for this purpose, or that that was their original intent? And I assume your claim is specifically meant to apply with respect to the U.S., and not to other countries who've had zoning laws in place for thousands of years. Hypothetically, would you say that the U.S. would have ignored the precedent for zoning laws that came from, e.g., England if they did not provide a convenient way to keep minorities out of whites-only neighborhoods? Would we be living in a zoning-free society if not for racism?
- astrange 3y ago
  > Could you say more about your claim that zoning exists to keep minorities out of white-only neighborhoods? As I said, you can just go read the meeting minutes when they were introduced in the early 20th century and it's why they said they were doing it. But there's a book called The Color of Law about it. > And do you mean that all zoning laws still exist for this purpose, or that that was their original intent? They still exist because they haven't been removed yet and the SCOTUS precedent (Euclid v Ambler) that authorizes them hasn't been overruled. Racial covenants on individual properties were removed, but not that. > precedent for zoning laws that came from, e.g., England To be clear, England doesn't have zoning, it has /much worse ideas/ where you can't do anything without planning permission and the US is a big improvement over it. (Urban growth boundaries are okay though, but the US has national parks so we're cooler.) > Would we be living in a zoning-free society if not for racism? We would still have things that you probably think of as zoning but are not actually zoning. For instance, it's legal to have a corner store in a housing district in any given old quaint European country, and Japan has some light forms of zoning strictly controlled at the national level so individual cities don't get big ideas about becoming exclusive.

pesfandiar 3y ago

The idea is to allow denser housing in residential areas, not completely removing any restrictions.

whimsicalism 3y ago

> Zoning exists for very important life safety reasons the market cannot account for. Action/omission bias - it is very important to life safety to be housed, yet zoning reduces the number of people housed.

inglor_cz 3y ago

"Do not build residential buildings in unsafe places" is not the same kind of zoning as "do not build apartment units because I don't want to live within walking distance of some poorer people".

CuriousCosmic 3y ago

When people say get rid of zoning, generally what they mean is to move to an intensity based zoning scheme. i.e. One where the zone indicates the "maximum" type of construction that may be built. i.e. in low rise residential zones you can only build low rise housing and small shops, in high rise residential you can still build low rise residential, in commercial you can build large commercial spaces but you can still build residential, and in "light industrial" zones you can build non-hazardous industrial structures but you can still build everything else. However for full blown industrial you can only build industrial due to the hazards. In practice that looks a lot like just getting rid of zoning entirely with the exception that traffic management works out a little better and actually dangerous industrial sites are still kept away from everything else.

jarjoura 3y ago

I think there's a huge difference when zoning in broad-strokes ways (ie residential here, and dangerous chemical plants here) and zoning in micro-targeted, social engineering ways, (ie. mixed-use only here, condos here, single-family here, townhomes here, etc.) The hyper-growth 1940s and 1950s that tore up a century of development across a lot of cities left us empowered activists of the 1960s and 1970s that overcorrected policies and laws and gave way too much power to neighborhoods to dictate all kinds of things they really shouldn't have had the power to dictate.