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My main complaint is that the people who like suburban density went ahead and made zoning codes to basically prevent building anything but sprawl, so now the fe

My main complaint is that the people who like suburban density went ahead and made zoning codes to basically prevent building anything but sprawl, so now the few remaining places that don't require a car are rare and super expensive. I'm even a car guy—I own a stick shift BMW—I just don't have much interest in getting into it to do literally any activity or errand other than walking around the neighborhood.

kulahan 2y ago
I think this is strongly overestimating the ratio of Americans who would be willing to walk to work, but that’s pure conjecture
- macNchz 2y ago
  Based on the price of houses in walkable/transit accessible parts of older American cities, there’s quite clearly a market for it. Ultimately, many Americans have basically no reference point for what it would be like to not depend on a car—it’s just what they’ve always known—so I’m sure you’re correct in that most would say they weren’t interested in living that way, but that’s not much of a reason to make rules against it.
  - DidYaWipe 2y ago
    That isn't the reason. The reason is that people who don't want to live that way have specifically chosen to live in an area developed in a different way. Why should that be destroyed or vilified? I see the appeal of both kinds of lifestyle. Some of my best friends live in nice Chicago neighborhoods where they don't need cars. They are not rich or even significantly "well-off" by most standards, and their homes did not and do not cost as much as a house in a suburban area. The "rules" prevent profiteers from destroying the standard of living for people who moved AWAY from density. Why should such people be herded around the country, hounded out of their homes for someone else's (increasingly a corporation's) profit? That's akin to black people being herded out of their neighborhoods for the construction of a highway.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      The rules you're talking about were uniformly created as a way to replace de jure racial segregation, which was outlawed surprisingly early in the 20th century, with de facto racial segregation. People supply post-hoc rationalizations for density restrictions, and some of them might even be valid, especially as you get further away from urban cores, but just to be clear: the Chesterton analysis here says these fences were erected by morons; they do not inherit a presumption of reasonableness. My confidence about this take is pretty high throughout the continental United States, but in Chicago it is something like 100%, since this is a local policy issue I work on here.
      - DidYaWipe 2y ago
        The blanket rejection of zoning, based on century-old racist transgressions, is pointless and tired. I lived in high-density areas my entire adult life until four years ago, when I finally bought a house that is a considerable distance away from those areas. I didn't do so for racist reasons. I did so because I required more space for my professional and personal pursuits. So I really don't give a shit about why the neighborhood was built originally, or feel the least bit guilty about opposing attempts to "Manhattanize" it. The defense of zoning is not "post hoc," since we're talking about today and in the future. The "racism" attack on it is ad hominem. I'm not against development, or density in areas that are designated for it. I'm against the vilification of entire neighborhoods under a false narrative that veils a craven profit motive, in combination with an entitled gimme-gimme-gimme delusion that cheap housing is going to rain down on people who could but don't work for it... if only we wipe out those horrible houses inhabited by rich racists.
        tptacek 2y ago
        Almost nobody is buying exclusively-zoned property for racist reasons. But the availability of those properties under those terms is an intended consequence of racist decisions, and so it is fair to re-evaluate whether it's reasonable for those terms to be enforced by the state's monopoly on violence. I say that in most exclusively-zoned areas in or near urban cores, the clear answer to that question is "no": most of what's single-family zoned today should be upzoned to fourplexes. That argument is easy to make on the merits: there's a real (and rippling) cost to maintaining single-family zones near cities, and the benefits accrue to a fortunate few. I say this as someone who owns an extremely and multivalently single-family property, the only property I own, and is working actively and primarily on upzoning that specific area. I have neighbors that would say what you're saying: you bought into wherever you live based on the promise that the state would commit arms to preventing any of your neighbors from admitting too many new residents. My response, when we succeed: "we are altering the deal."
DidYaWipe 2y ago
"The people who like suburban density went ahead and made zoning codes to basically prevent building anything but sprawl" What, exactly, qualifies as "sprawl" to you? Houses with yards? How do you propose we build those to make them "non-sprawly?" Most of your statement is true, though: "People who like suburban density went ahead and made zoning codes to basically prevent building anything but" that density. So? Those codes exist in SOME areas. They give people a choice of what kind of area they live in. Yes, yes, they were all racist and evil back in the day. Today they serve a valid and non-nefarious purpose: giving people a choice. "the few remaining places that don't require a car are rare and super expensive." Do you have specifics on that? Are you saying there are no small towns to live in? That condos and apartments in the downtowns and city centers and town centers and boroughs of United States cities are more expensive than houses? Take L.A. for instance. It has become very popular to piss and moan about "single-family homes" and to pass craven developer handouts in the guise of sham "housing reform." Meanwhile, dead or dying malls sit with boarded-up anchor tenants (there's an abandoned Macy's a few miles from me) and vast empty parking lots growing weeds. Also, downtown L.A. is not "full." Nor are other high-density areas across the county, if you look at vacancy numbers. And then there are the tracts of disused, formerly commercial or light-industrial parcels all over the city and county. And yet already-residential areas are targeted for destruction. And I do mean destruction. In a drought- and heat-plagued area, there is no excuse to promote the wipeout of every last tree and the paving-over of every last yard for the construction of 10 units where a single house stood. Yes, recent state legislation allowed just that, WITH NO REVIEW REQUIRED OR POSSIBLE. A developer's dream. Meanwhile, vast tracts that have already suffered these effects of "density," the aforementioned malls and parkingn lots, sit empty. And on top of all this, nothing is being done about the corporate buy-ups of entire neighborhoods. This is even worse than the "shortage" itself, because it takes what housing does exist off the market PERMANENTLY. Corporations don't typically die and leave their homes to their kids. But people do, and corporations are scooping up those houses as fast as they can, exacerbating a home-ownership crisis that deprives Americans of their best way to build wealth.
- macNchz 2y ago
  American sprawl at its core, I think, is driven by single family residential-only zoning with parking minimums. In combination these rules force everything to spread out. Single family homes can exist in non-sprawling configurations (e.g. old streetcar suburbs), but in combination with the other rules you wind up with businesses that are required to be far away from homes, to have large parking lots, and therefore be mostly hostile to anyone arriving outside of a car. I look at the nice rural town I grew up in and the city brownstone neighborhood I live in now, and see two places with lots of real estate demand that could not, in much of America, be built today. The very nature of why these places are appealing comes from the fact they were built before these zoning codes. The businesses and schools are in walking distance of houses and have far too little parking. I don’t see why we can’t relax some of the rules in some places and let people have a choice.

kulahan 2y ago

I think this is strongly overestimating the ratio of Americans who would be willing to walk to work, but that’s pure conjecture

macNchz 2y ago
Based on the price of houses in walkable/transit accessible parts of older American cities, there’s quite clearly a market for it. Ultimately, many Americans have basically no reference point for what it would be like to not depend on a car—it’s just what they’ve always known—so I’m sure you’re correct in that most would say they weren’t interested in living that way, but that’s not much of a reason to make rules against it.
- DidYaWipe 2y ago
  That isn't the reason. The reason is that people who don't want to live that way have specifically chosen to live in an area developed in a different way. Why should that be destroyed or vilified? I see the appeal of both kinds of lifestyle. Some of my best friends live in nice Chicago neighborhoods where they don't need cars. They are not rich or even significantly "well-off" by most standards, and their homes did not and do not cost as much as a house in a suburban area. The "rules" prevent profiteers from destroying the standard of living for people who moved AWAY from density. Why should such people be herded around the country, hounded out of their homes for someone else's (increasingly a corporation's) profit? That's akin to black people being herded out of their neighborhoods for the construction of a highway.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    The rules you're talking about were uniformly created as a way to replace de jure racial segregation, which was outlawed surprisingly early in the 20th century, with de facto racial segregation. People supply post-hoc rationalizations for density restrictions, and some of them might even be valid, especially as you get further away from urban cores, but just to be clear: the Chesterton analysis here says these fences were erected by morons; they do not inherit a presumption of reasonableness. My confidence about this take is pretty high throughout the continental United States, but in Chicago it is something like 100%, since this is a local policy issue I work on here.
    - DidYaWipe 2y ago
      The blanket rejection of zoning, based on century-old racist transgressions, is pointless and tired. I lived in high-density areas my entire adult life until four years ago, when I finally bought a house that is a considerable distance away from those areas. I didn't do so for racist reasons. I did so because I required more space for my professional and personal pursuits. So I really don't give a shit about why the neighborhood was built originally, or feel the least bit guilty about opposing attempts to "Manhattanize" it. The defense of zoning is not "post hoc," since we're talking about today and in the future. The "racism" attack on it is ad hominem. I'm not against development, or density in areas that are designated for it. I'm against the vilification of entire neighborhoods under a false narrative that veils a craven profit motive, in combination with an entitled gimme-gimme-gimme delusion that cheap housing is going to rain down on people who could but don't work for it... if only we wipe out those horrible houses inhabited by rich racists.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        Almost nobody is buying exclusively-zoned property for racist reasons. But the availability of those properties under those terms is an intended consequence of racist decisions, and so it is fair to re-evaluate whether it's reasonable for those terms to be enforced by the state's monopoly on violence. I say that in most exclusively-zoned areas in or near urban cores, the clear answer to that question is "no": most of what's single-family zoned today should be upzoned to fourplexes. That argument is easy to make on the merits: there's a real (and rippling) cost to maintaining single-family zones near cities, and the benefits accrue to a fortunate few. I say this as someone who owns an extremely and multivalently single-family property, the only property I own, and is working actively and primarily on upzoning that specific area. I have neighbors that would say what you're saying: you bought into wherever you live based on the promise that the state would commit arms to preventing any of your neighbors from admitting too many new residents. My response, when we succeed: "we are altering the deal."

DidYaWipe 2y ago

"The people who like suburban density went ahead and made zoning codes to basically prevent building anything but sprawl" What, exactly, qualifies as "sprawl" to you? Houses with yards? How do you propose we build those to make them "non-sprawly?" Most of your statement is true, though: "People who like suburban density went ahead and made zoning codes to basically prevent building anything but" that density. So? Those codes exist in SOME areas. They give people a choice of what kind of area they live in. Yes, yes, they were all racist and evil back in the day. Today they serve a valid and non-nefarious purpose: giving people a choice. "the few remaining places that don't require a car are rare and super expensive." Do you have specifics on that? Are you saying there are no small towns to live in? That condos and apartments in the downtowns and city centers and town centers and boroughs of United States cities are more expensive than houses? Take L.A. for instance. It has become very popular to piss and moan about "single-family homes" and to pass craven developer handouts in the guise of sham "housing reform." Meanwhile, dead or dying malls sit with boarded-up anchor tenants (there's an abandoned Macy's a few miles from me) and vast empty parking lots growing weeds. Also, downtown L.A. is not "full." Nor are other high-density areas across the county, if you look at vacancy numbers. And then there are the tracts of disused, formerly commercial or light-industrial parcels all over the city and county. And yet already-residential areas are targeted for destruction. And I do mean destruction. In a drought- and heat-plagued area, there is no excuse to promote the wipeout of every last tree and the paving-over of every last yard for the construction of 10 units where a single house stood. Yes, recent state legislation allowed just that, WITH NO REVIEW REQUIRED OR POSSIBLE. A developer's dream. Meanwhile, vast tracts that have already suffered these effects of "density," the aforementioned malls and parkingn lots, sit empty. And on top of all this, nothing is being done about the corporate buy-ups of entire neighborhoods. This is even worse than the "shortage" itself, because it takes what housing does exist off the market PERMANENTLY. Corporations don't typically die and leave their homes to their kids. But people do, and corporations are scooping up those houses as fast as they can, exacerbating a home-ownership crisis that deprives Americans of their best way to build wealth.

macNchz 2y ago
American sprawl at its core, I think, is driven by single family residential-only zoning with parking minimums. In combination these rules force everything to spread out. Single family homes can exist in non-sprawling configurations (e.g. old streetcar suburbs), but in combination with the other rules you wind up with businesses that are required to be far away from homes, to have large parking lots, and therefore be mostly hostile to anyone arriving outside of a car. I look at the nice rural town I grew up in and the city brownstone neighborhood I live in now, and see two places with lots of real estate demand that could not, in much of America, be built today. The very nature of why these places are appealing comes from the fact they were built before these zoning codes. The businesses and schools are in walking distance of houses and have far too little parking. I don’t see why we can’t relax some of the rules in some places and let people have a choice.