[rayiner]

> There is a bit of a conflict in the mechanics of democracy with zoning laws and taxes

There’s really not. All extant democracies recognize private property, with certain limits for the public interest. Zoning is an extreme imposition on private property rights, of a sort that ordinarily would only be consciences in light of equally compelling public interests. Unfortunately, we had a few bad Supreme Court decisions at the height of white panic about desegregation that normalized such impositions. You’d hesitate greatly before taxing someone half the value of their property, but local governments think nothing of eliminating half the value (or more) of private property through zoning or historical preservation ordinances.

[lotsofpulp]

The extremely high prevalence of HOAs in the US indicate to me the population not only wants zoning, they want to go further than what normal zoning does. The conflict I’m talking about though is two fold: the voter voting in their own interest which is opposite to those of society as a whole, and the voter voting for gain in the short term while sacrificing the long term.

[TomMckenny]

All democracies allow personal property but this does not extend to land. In fact, all democracies have always put controls on land ownership and treatment of tenants. Even the US itself taxed land before income.

The only places with no protections were medieval societies and their resultant immense inequality.