This is ludicrously over the top. Yes, some of what you allege, without a single concrete example from a real place, is, or has been true, at some times in some places. But not one of the things you allege about zoning is true in the community I live in. Our town has promoted mixed use walkable development and reined in sprawl for 20 years. The neighboring towns are behind, but not that far. One of them is building a true new downtown. And all of this can be accomplished only by using zoning. The “market” will not produce it. Zoning is a tool that can accomplish many things. Your premise here is that the tool is to blame for the use to which it is put. That’s like getting mad at a wrench because you tried to drive a nail with it. The causes of the dysfunctions you attempt to address are much deeper. Railing on about the misapplication of a tool just diverts attention from the question of what the task really is.
Zoning is a type of land use regulation that exists to restrict property rights. It directly interferes with the market, so of course the market doesn't produce what fits us as humans. In the vast majority of the US, it's illegal to have a single-family home, a duplex, a dentist office, and a grocery store on the same street.
America's junk infrastructure and land use problems aren't an oopsies because of some people misused the zoning tool. The very nature of zoning is spread everything out. Zoning is the baddie.
“Zoning is the baddie".” Seriously, I feel as if I have been teleported back to 4th grade recess. If you don’t like what comes next, blame it on Donald J. His inauguration has dented my normally charitable demeanor.
I am a member of College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and have in the course of a 50+ year career won some nice awards for writing land-use regulations. It is a matter of record that I was advocating changes in the way zoning was normally done as far back as the ‘70s. But I never did that under the delusion that zoning somehow magically descended on our communities and, in many places, had bad consquences. The way zoning is now, mostly, and always has been, is a mirror of the pressure the private sector puts on local officials.
21 years ago, I was called on to help a progressive suburban town “fix” its land use issues. In collaboration with some developers who were capable of listening, we now have a dense growth center where almost all of the growth of the past 15 or so years (and there has been substantial growth because this is a darned nice place to live) is within walking distance of not one, but two, supermarkets. Also places to eat, etc. And while we don’t have a block with the exact mix of uses you describe, it would be perfectly legal.
I know, because I sat across the table and negotiated with them, what local developers would have built instead: large-lot, single-family subdivisions and strip commercial. That may not be what optimizes the ROI. Its what minimizes risk, and that is what they seek. The reason we got, and continue to get, something better is because we zoned for it. Let me repeat that, we only got a good pattern of development because we could use zoning to compel it. The market would never have produced it. The town recently improved its regulations and some of the developers (some have learned) showed up trying to drag the town back to the days of strip malls. They failed because the results of what we have done speak for themselves.
Its not hard, if you get out and about, to find communities where there are no, or next to no, land use regulations. They’re all over the middle of the country. And you will have to look very hard to find a nice neo-traditional village out there. What gets built in the absence of zoning is the same as what gets built with the zoning you seem to think is universal, large-lot residential and strip commercial. Zoning is not the difference.
America’s junk infrastructure (which I have some experiences with, it does exist) and land use problems are not the result of zoning. Like it, they are symptoms of the commodification of the landscape, the over-the-top individualism we are taught (along with the lame version of economics that supports it), and the power we allow to certain players because most of us just want to hang out with our kids and dogs, and politics is hard. There is a better way, I’ve been there, and I know that your blanket dismissal of zoning is a dead-end off that path.
Have a good evening. And don’t worry, I won’t be back.
"The way zoning is now, mostly, and always has been, is a mirror of the pressure the private sector puts on local officials."
This claim is true in the sense that huge corporations thrive in a heavily regulated environment because it reduces competition. So those powerful corporates lobby heavily to preserve the status quo.
Meanwhile, small-to-mid-size housing providers can't provide housing because local governments forbid it via zoning. Ordinary people in the private sector who want human-scale design are applying pressure to *remove* barriers. Nellis is the type of planner I'm ranting about in the original post. The industry has been doing this country a disservice for decades.
Issue just came up locally (pun) ... turns out strip clubs are often built near neighborhoods with or without zoning. I'm not saying that's good or bad. But people live just about everywhere now days. When they tried to apply a 2000ft buffer to this ordinance for sensitive stuff like schools, housing etc, they were left with nowhere to build. Apparently, that's a no-no in terms of overly restricing what this county deemed "sexually-oriented business." Ultimately they went with 1000 feet. https://www.williamsburgindependent.com/p/news-york-county-supervisors-restrict-adult-sexually-oriented-business?r=46dse3
Not clear we’ll ever reach a crisis that would upend the whole system. It seems gradual reforms in CA, MN and other places are working to make housing more affordable, which should encourage more gradual reform.
Re: "Zoning was established in the early 20th century as a way to protect homeowners from unwanted industrial developments nearby. It was pitched as a way to separate heavy industry from residential neighborhoods..."
Zoning was also used to keep out lower-income residents and people from different races. Paul Groth's history of SROs and boarding houses shows that the zoning laws used in 19th-century and early 20th century SF against rooming houses were ostensibly about safety but the real goal was to keep out low-income people and Chinese immigrants (among other groups).
[Groth, Paul. Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in the United States. Chapter Four—Rooming Houses and the Margins of Respectability. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.]
Yes, tons of racial abuse has been well documented. I deliberately gave a gracious outlook as a way of saying even with good intentions, zoning has a miserable track record.
"Zoning" is very broad. The North American version of zoning is clearly very bad and as much as planners and many urbanists identify faults with zoning, they still advocate reforming around the edges, while retaining the first-order principles. On the other hand, NA-zoning is unique in giving privileged status to residential land use and to detached, single-family dwellings. In addition, US-zoning is Balkanized into the enabling laws of fifty states giving authority to local governments, creating a Hydra. Germany and Japan are two examples of zoning structures that might be a fundamental improvement. Therefore, it's plausible in theory that zoning could be reformed in NA.
This is ludicrously over the top. Yes, some of what you allege, without a single concrete example from a real place, is, or has been true, at some times in some places. But not one of the things you allege about zoning is true in the community I live in. Our town has promoted mixed use walkable development and reined in sprawl for 20 years. The neighboring towns are behind, but not that far. One of them is building a true new downtown. And all of this can be accomplished only by using zoning. The “market” will not produce it. Zoning is a tool that can accomplish many things. Your premise here is that the tool is to blame for the use to which it is put. That’s like getting mad at a wrench because you tried to drive a nail with it. The causes of the dysfunctions you attempt to address are much deeper. Railing on about the misapplication of a tool just diverts attention from the question of what the task really is.
Zoning is a type of land use regulation that exists to restrict property rights. It directly interferes with the market, so of course the market doesn't produce what fits us as humans. In the vast majority of the US, it's illegal to have a single-family home, a duplex, a dentist office, and a grocery store on the same street.
This post might help:
https://www.urbanismspeakeasy.com/p/zoning-makes-the-housing-go-missing
Did you actually read what I wrote?
America's junk infrastructure and land use problems aren't an oopsies because of some people misused the zoning tool. The very nature of zoning is spread everything out. Zoning is the baddie.
“Zoning is the baddie".” Seriously, I feel as if I have been teleported back to 4th grade recess. If you don’t like what comes next, blame it on Donald J. His inauguration has dented my normally charitable demeanor.
I am a member of College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and have in the course of a 50+ year career won some nice awards for writing land-use regulations. It is a matter of record that I was advocating changes in the way zoning was normally done as far back as the ‘70s. But I never did that under the delusion that zoning somehow magically descended on our communities and, in many places, had bad consquences. The way zoning is now, mostly, and always has been, is a mirror of the pressure the private sector puts on local officials.
21 years ago, I was called on to help a progressive suburban town “fix” its land use issues. In collaboration with some developers who were capable of listening, we now have a dense growth center where almost all of the growth of the past 15 or so years (and there has been substantial growth because this is a darned nice place to live) is within walking distance of not one, but two, supermarkets. Also places to eat, etc. And while we don’t have a block with the exact mix of uses you describe, it would be perfectly legal.
I know, because I sat across the table and negotiated with them, what local developers would have built instead: large-lot, single-family subdivisions and strip commercial. That may not be what optimizes the ROI. Its what minimizes risk, and that is what they seek. The reason we got, and continue to get, something better is because we zoned for it. Let me repeat that, we only got a good pattern of development because we could use zoning to compel it. The market would never have produced it. The town recently improved its regulations and some of the developers (some have learned) showed up trying to drag the town back to the days of strip malls. They failed because the results of what we have done speak for themselves.
Its not hard, if you get out and about, to find communities where there are no, or next to no, land use regulations. They’re all over the middle of the country. And you will have to look very hard to find a nice neo-traditional village out there. What gets built in the absence of zoning is the same as what gets built with the zoning you seem to think is universal, large-lot residential and strip commercial. Zoning is not the difference.
America’s junk infrastructure (which I have some experiences with, it does exist) and land use problems are not the result of zoning. Like it, they are symptoms of the commodification of the landscape, the over-the-top individualism we are taught (along with the lame version of economics that supports it), and the power we allow to certain players because most of us just want to hang out with our kids and dogs, and politics is hard. There is a better way, I’ve been there, and I know that your blanket dismissal of zoning is a dead-end off that path.
Have a good evening. And don’t worry, I won’t be back.
"The way zoning is now, mostly, and always has been, is a mirror of the pressure the private sector puts on local officials."
This claim is true in the sense that huge corporations thrive in a heavily regulated environment because it reduces competition. So those powerful corporates lobby heavily to preserve the status quo.
Meanwhile, small-to-mid-size housing providers can't provide housing because local governments forbid it via zoning. Ordinary people in the private sector who want human-scale design are applying pressure to *remove* barriers. Nellis is the type of planner I'm ranting about in the original post. The industry has been doing this country a disservice for decades.
Yes, and it looks like you don't understand what zoning is.
Issue just came up locally (pun) ... turns out strip clubs are often built near neighborhoods with or without zoning. I'm not saying that's good or bad. But people live just about everywhere now days. When they tried to apply a 2000ft buffer to this ordinance for sensitive stuff like schools, housing etc, they were left with nowhere to build. Apparently, that's a no-no in terms of overly restricing what this county deemed "sexually-oriented business." Ultimately they went with 1000 feet. https://www.williamsburgindependent.com/p/news-york-county-supervisors-restrict-adult-sexually-oriented-business?r=46dse3
Not clear we’ll ever reach a crisis that would upend the whole system. It seems gradual reforms in CA, MN and other places are working to make housing more affordable, which should encourage more gradual reform.
Re: "Zoning was established in the early 20th century as a way to protect homeowners from unwanted industrial developments nearby. It was pitched as a way to separate heavy industry from residential neighborhoods..."
Zoning was also used to keep out lower-income residents and people from different races. Paul Groth's history of SROs and boarding houses shows that the zoning laws used in 19th-century and early 20th century SF against rooming houses were ostensibly about safety but the real goal was to keep out low-income people and Chinese immigrants (among other groups).
[Groth, Paul. Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in the United States. Chapter Four—Rooming Houses and the Margins of Respectability. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.]
Yes, tons of racial abuse has been well documented. I deliberately gave a gracious outlook as a way of saying even with good intentions, zoning has a miserable track record.
"Zoning" is very broad. The North American version of zoning is clearly very bad and as much as planners and many urbanists identify faults with zoning, they still advocate reforming around the edges, while retaining the first-order principles. On the other hand, NA-zoning is unique in giving privileged status to residential land use and to detached, single-family dwellings. In addition, US-zoning is Balkanized into the enabling laws of fifty states giving authority to local governments, creating a Hydra. Germany and Japan are two examples of zoning structures that might be a fundamental improvement. Therefore, it's plausible in theory that zoning could be reformed in NA.