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When you learn more about the history of zoning - it's allll about keeping neighborhoods wealthy. Not allowing lower classes in. A lot of weird things make sens
by Schiendelman 2y ago
When you learn more about the history of zoning - it's allll about keeping neighborhoods wealthy. Not allowing lower classes in. A lot of weird things make sense when you look at them through that lens.
- jeffbee 2y agoAmerican zoning in theory: we will keep noise and pollution away from homes. American zoning in practice: the only place homes are permitted is within 50 meters of freeways.
- Schiendelman 2y agoHa! So true. It's fascinating, zoning in practice just has nothing to do with any of its stated goals.
- lesuorac 2y ago> American zoning in theory: we will keep noise and pollution away from homes. I think you misunderstood the parents comment. The origins of zoning is to prevent the mixing of blacks and whites. It's not about noise pollution; it's about segregation.
- mistrial9 2y agothis is misinformation -- zoning is complex; basically it appears that "if zoning was ever used to separate minority neighborhoods" then it becomes "zoning is to prevent mixing of races" Let's be perfectly clear -- racial segregation is illegal in the USA; zoning has many implementations, many uses, many pressures and has baggage from historical situations
- jeffbee 2y agoWe're discussing the origins. The origin of zoning clearly is racial segregation. It was an explicit response to the supreme court decision that outlawed racial covenants.
- potato3732842 2y agoThe "zoning was done by the racists" along with "white flight was what destroyed the cities" is a dumb just-so narrative that the modern analogues of those people peddle so that they may distance their analogously poor sighted idea, movements, advocacy and politics from the mistakes that the The fundamental problem is that a large part of the population feels entitled to use government to micromanage things that are better off just not managed at all. It is none of your business what your neighbor puts on their property whether it's a homeless shelter or luxury apartment or a bodega or a fancy coffee shop. Real estate development is something market solves very well if people mind their own business and not other people's business.
- jeffbee 2y agoThat zoning was invented for racial exclusion is not hypothetical. These guys were on the record with their motivations.
- potato3732842 2y agoThe whole race thing is a distraction from the fact that the evil motivations to use the force of government to micromanage others for the most petty and frivolous of reasons (a category that "wrong skin color" would surely fall into) persist to this day.
- jeffbee 2y agoI agree, because I hold vanilla libertarian beliefs about property rights. Unfortunately 99.12% of American libertarians are using the word to mean "selfish asshole" and as soon as you suggest that zoning is a government taking, they abandon the whole platform to defend zoning.
- Schiendelman 2y agoI'm with you, fellow .88%!
- giraffe_lady 2y agoZoning is in the history sweet spot: Recent enough that we have well-preserved records of its origins and use. But old enough that we have had time to study the effects in practice, regardless of original intent. Widespread enough that we can know any effects were not hidden variables from local geography or politics. But not universal, so we can compare the effects over time with and without it. That's all to say that it is well understood by people who study zoning in the US, of which there are plenty, that american racial dynamics are central in the history and use of zoning. It was not always used intentionally for segregation, but it was used for that very frequently over a long enough period of time that you can't consider it incidental to the practice. If you look to the early 20th century you can read the discussions people were having at the time about it: letters, and op-eds, and sometimes the ordinances themselves explicitly discuss the racial justifications. At the time racial segregation was well within the national overton window, they did not have a reason to hide to hide this motivation and so they did not. Later on it gets more complicated.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- AlgorithmicTime 2y ago[dead]
- FeloniousHam 2y agoI went to Disney World for a long vacation. I stayed in multiple Disney properties, just for the novelty. The cheapest "resort" (really just a large motel complex) was one experience, the most expensive a very different one. I preferred the expensive one. I don't hate the poors.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoExcept when zoning intentionally destroys the value of neighborhoods where undesirables live - how the highways were built, red lining, etc.
- Schiendelman 2y agoNeither of those were zoning. It's easy to conflate a lot of these actions together, but they are very different legal structures.
- insane_dreamer 2y agois there a book that chronicles that history accurately? interested (I know there's been a lot written about redlining specifically, but I'm talking more broadly of the development and history of zoning.)
- Schiendelman 2y ago"The Color of Law" gets into some details, though it's not explicitly about zoning. Other books about zoning are... strangely supportive.