[neilparikh]

Central planning is not something we should be encouraging, except for cases where the market fails. It's not clear to me there's a market failure that's being corrected with single family zoning.

Central planning leads to a situation where market signals are ignored, and entrenches the status quo, rather than allowing cities (and economies in general) to change as needed. It seems highly unlikely that we've stumbled upon the "perfect" land use pattern. Why make it impossible to change from it then?

[intrasight]

So you're agreeing, right? Have my town be free of "central planning" and set it's own course in terms of zoning.

[neilparikh]

What? How did you get that from my comment?

I'm referring to zoning as the central planning. It's central planning at a local scale, but still central planning.

Instead of letting each town set its own course, why not just let each property owner set their own course (within reasonable limits for market failures, like safety)?

My entire point is that restrictive zoning is the bureaucrats in the city governments deciding what the best use is for each plot of land, rather than letting the market decide based on demand.

Also, if we look at the Berkley case (which is what the OP is about!), there was no external force, the town made the change on its own.