[AnthonyMouse]

> Federal regulations prevent a race to the bottom for things like pollution, labor rights, etc.

Not really. Local people suffer the most from local pollution and low local wages etc., so they have the most incentive to strike a reasonable balance. Federalizing e.g. minimum wage is just an excuse for high cost of living areas to screw over low cost of living areas by depriving them of their natural cost advantage, pressuring wage laborers into higher cost of living areas where they get less for their money because businesses stop operating in lower cost of living areas if they would have to pay the same wages.

Also, there is no point in trying to do this at the federal level because any company whose primary motivation is "lack of environmental regulations" has already moved to e.g. China.

> But, in terms of how to lay out a town in terms of residential zones vs. commercial zones, sure that should be local.

Ironically, this is the thing that actually suffers from being too local, because residency is required to vote in local elections, and then you get exclusionary policies and zoning designed to inflate housing costs which can't be reformed because everyone with an interest in reform is excluded by the unreformed policies from eligibility to vote in the jurisdiction.

Though of course that could be fixed by moving to the state level from the cities; almost nothing actually needs to be done at the federal level.

[kbenson]

> Not really. Local people suffer the most from local pollution and low local wages etc., so they have the most incentive to strike a reasonable balance.

I don't know. On the one hand, you can look at the Kansas Experiment[1] as vindication of the federal and state system, where the states experiment. On the other hand, you could see that as stupid people (or at least some a bit divorced from reality) willing to throw caution to the wind to the detriment of their constituents, and for the most part not learn anything from the fallout.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment

[bhupy]

At least the damage from those stupid people is well contained, as opposed to the alternative where stupid people come into power at the Federal level every 4-8 years and muck it up for everybody.

[kbenson]

I guess that's true. I imagine the less polarized the environment is the more beneficial the Federal approach is, because you get sane checks and balances and consensus on things before accepted. The more polarized it is, the better the compartmentalization of states is at keeping the crazies at each end of the spectrum from causing too much damage to everyone at once.

[AnthonyMouse]

When there is a lot of consensus then the states just independently decide to do similar things as each other, so it works fine in that case too.

[not2b]

Not necessarily. Before the EPA, states would often put their toxic dumps close to the state line, where the winds and the current would take their crap into the next state. Incentives only work if there are no externalities (sticking someone else with the bill).

And moving power from the cities to the state level tends to screw the city, especially in heavily gerrymandered states.

You're certainly right that NIMBYism in zoning laws is a big problem, but NIMBYs can be quite powerful at the state level as well.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Not necessarily. Before the EPA, states would often put their toxic dumps close to the state line, where the winds and the current would take their crap into the next state. Incentives only work if there are no externalities (sticking someone else with the bill).

The answer to this is to let states sue each other in federal court for any pollution that crosses state lines. Not companies in the states, the states themselves. Then states can prevent that from happening however they like, but if they don't, the state itself owes the neighboring state(s) billions of dollars. Strict liability. And then you don't need any federal regulations telling anybody how to do it.

> And moving power from the cities to the state level tends to screw the city, especially in heavily gerrymandered states.

On zoning rules? It's hard to imagine people getting screwed much worse than they do now.

[anoncake]

> The answer to this is to let states sue each other in federal court for any pollution that crosses state lines.

That's a regulation, a very draconian one: States are not allowed to pollute whatsoever.