[rsync]

"Residential-only zoning is "the bad kind of zoning"."

I wish I could mind-meld with you and transmit the memories and experiences of growing up in a residential area with no zoning.

You know that sci-fi trope where the empath gets the memory dump and breaks away screaming and crying because they can't handle the trauma that comes through ?

It would be like that.

You think you'll get cute shops and pop-ups and delightful mixed-use and stimulating workshop spaces and crafty folks doing things artisanally.

What you will actually get is half-built cars. Everywhere. You will get mobile homes and immobile RVs. You will get horses. Not rich-people horses, but "Grandma died and she had a horse and nobody knew what to do with it so we fenced part of the front yard" horses. Someone will disconnect from city sewer because they "know how to build septic". Someone will get llamas.

You think I'm making this up and I promise you I am not.

You've lived so long in a nicely regulated, rules-based order that you have no idea the kind of bullshit people engage in the minute the rules go away.

[danaris]

> What you will actually get is half-built cars. Everywhere. You will get mobile homes and immobile RVs. You will get horses. Not rich-people horses, but "Grandma died and she had a horse and nobody knew what to do with it so we fenced part of the front yard" horses. Someone will disconnect from city sewer because they "know how to build septic". Someone will get llamas.

a) It sounds like what you're saying is "you'll get poor people". There are several things wrong with that, the first one being the rampant classism inherent in it.

b) So you'll get horses, and mobile homes. So what? Oooh, are you afraid your property values will drop? Deal with it. That's a small price to pay to enable the kinds of walkable neighborhoods mixed zoning allows, and the kind of rejuvenated communities it creates.

c) Allowing residential and commercial zones to mix has nothing to do with people trying to build their own septic systems.

All in all, it sounds to me like you experienced what happens when you live in a lower-income area, that happens not to have strong zoning laws, and your takeaway from that experience is that the lack of zoning caused the lower-income parts. Correlation is not causation, and not letting rich people stuff poor people away in a corner and forget about them is absolutely part of what we need to do.

[astrange]

> a) It sounds like what you're saying is "you'll get poor people".

It's more like trashy (rural coded?) middle class people I think. Collectors of broken cars and llamas aren't that poor! Similarly, you see pictures of people in, say, West Virginia with tons of stuff in their yard and kinda messy houses, but they're homeowners in a rich first world country and I suspect they're often pretty well off for the area. It's more of a personality thing.

The confusing part for me was that there are mobile homes and RVs everywhere in Silicon Valley because there aren't enough homes due to the super strict zoning.

[rsync]

All I am trying to share is that when rules are absent, behavior gets worse than you expect, in ways that beggar belief.

That is not limited to “poor people” (your words).

[danaris]

None of the things you've listed—except possibly the ones trying to self-install a septic system when they already have municipal sewer access—sound like "bad behavior." (And, again, that has nothing to do with zoning.)

What it sounds like is the stereotypical upper-middle-class white suburban boogeyman of "Those People" that you don't want around, because they bring down property values, with a healthy helping of implied racism and explicit classism.

Furthermore, there's no reason why zoning laws couldn't be selectively adjusted and relaxed—for instance, to ensure no heavy industry goes in right in the middle of a residential area, where it's more likely to be disruptive to sleep and potentially polluting.

Acting like relaxing zoning laws to allow for corner stores and similar things will bring us to a Mad Max-style wasteland is exactly the kind of rampant NIMBYism that got us into this mess in the first place.

[rsync]

"What it sounds like is the stereotypical upper-middle-class white suburban boogeyman of "Those People" that you don't want around, because they bring down property values, with a healthy helping of implied racism and explicit classism."

I don't know what it "sounds like" and I cannot speak to your stereotypes.

I no longer have any interaction with residential property, zoning, development, or any of these housing politics. I am not affected by "property values".

I look at these issues as an interested, outside observer and I have tremendous enthusiasm for urban spaces, walkable cities, mixed use environs, etc.

But at the same time I appreciate well regulated[1] single family neighborhoods/developments and while I don't live anywhere like that I appreciate the reasons that someone might have for preferring that.

I hope that it is useful and interesting to you to learn that there are a variety of practical and aesthetic reasons for (not agreeing with you) that come from ideas and experience that (aren't the stereotypes you have in mind).

[1] This is the correct term. Arguing for abolishment of residential zoning is arguing for deregulation.

[stonogo]

> I no longer have any interaction with residential property,

I bet you do, unless you have moved to orbit.

[leereeves]

> behavior gets worse than you expect, in ways that beggar belief.

Broken cars, RVs, mobile homes, and animals. How did that cause such trauma?

I'd take all of that over an intrusive HOA.

[mariosisters]

Everyone says that until their neighbor’s hobby includes heavy machinery at 6am. Then they say “well no that’s this other non-zoning, non-HOA type of law we really do need”.

But really, people want to do what they want, and other folks don’t get to. That’s the whole of it.

[amanaplanacanal]

You've just described all of law, not zoning. Getting rid of zoning does not automatically lead to anarchy.

[lotsoweiners]

Cool. Live in that neighborhood. I want to live in a neighborhood without that and will gladly pay an HOA to regulate the riff-raff.

[UncleMeat]

Living in an RV or a mobile home is "bad behavior"?

[astrange]

I've been to Japan (+ several other countries that aren't the US). It's pretty nice there.

As to whether or not zoning laws are what prevent people from owning horses, that's not clear to me. But a law saying you can't build a bookstore or apartment on the lot doesn't seem very related.

[rsync]

"As to whether or not zoning laws are what prevent people from owning horses, that's not clear to me. But a law saying you can't build a bookstore or apartment ..."

Everyone thinks they want to "get rid of zoning" but, of course, there are "obvious" rules we would all need to follow and "of course you can't do that" ... and it quickly becomes murky as to where "zoning" begins and ends and which regulations are "legitimate" or not.

Either people can communally decide what rules they want to enact or they can't.

If they can, restricting multi-family housing is as legitimate as anything else in a democracy. Like allowing or disallowing horses. Or limits to vehicles-on-blocks-in-the-front-yard. Or ad-hoc septic systems.

[rcpt]

> people can communally decide

How big is this community? Who decides that?

[jojobas]

In Japan you just don't do any of those things due to exceptionally high, by European or American standard, social pressure do to The Right Thing.

Or, at the very least, to not do anything out of the ordinary.

[astrange]

Out of Tokyo and San Francisco, which one requires all new buildings to go to subjective design reviews where your neighbors complain about shadows and tell you they don't like the color you plan to paint it and the style of windows facing the road?

Hint: it's not Tokyo, which actually does have a fair number of old ugly poorly-maintained buildings scattered around random nice neighborhoods. Which is fine and not hurting anyone.

[midoridensha]

Tokyo actually does have rules about shadows: new building plans have to show how the new building will affect the sunlight of neighboring buildings. I think there's some limitations along these lines, but not a lot. But yeah, you can make your building as ugly as you want.

Anyway, those older, ugly, poorly-maintained buildings eventually get torn down and replaced with something better, because the land value is very high. It's much more laissez-faire than the US and property rights are much, much stronger (the idea that you should mostly be able to do what you want with your property).

[ryan_lane]

I was recently looking to buy a house, and the agent said this is the reason for the weird shapes of housing. You can't build a building in such a way that reduces the light into bedrooms. There's a certain amount of light available for a room that allows it to be classified as a bedroom or not. Hence why you'll see places listed as a 3LDK with a "storage room", rather than a 4LDK in some cases.

[jojobas]

I'm not talking about building houses in absence of personal contact, I'm talking about keeping horses, llamas and half-built cars in a residential area.

[astrange]

What's the difference that isn't a posthoc fallacy?

Cause suburban Americans are famous busybodies. There's no way you can outdo them. They think anyone walking past their house is casing it for a robbery and will call the police and post on Nextdoor about it.

[jojobas]

You don't seem to understand what I'm talking about. Imagine a HOA that has a say as what you wear, what you cook and what colour your curtains are, except it doesn't exist except in your mind through how you were brought up. A mere thought of your neighbor greeting you in a slightly abnormal manner because you are wearing bright green sneakers is enough for you not to buy them.

[ryan_lane]

You can't buy a car unless you have proof you have a parking spot, so the cars part is out. Same deal with RVs. No street parking, no RV.

There's no space for people to have a horse.

There's plenty of places that I think everyone would call a "shack" made from old tin that's probably been around since the 50s or so, and is not really any different from a mobile home. So that exists here and people are generally OK with it.

People wouldn't disconnect from the sewer to do septic. That isn't a zoning issue, it's a public health one, and it's obviously illegal.

Honestly, none of the hypotheticals described have to do with zoning. Social pressure to do the right thing is a thing here, but not the only reason that things aren't super chaotic.

[lamontcg]

The article is about a "builders remedy" around zoning. It isn't going to change anything about cars, mobile homes, RVs, horses, llamas or sewers.

[mc32]

I think it's reasonable to invoke Chesterton's Fence here. We have to fully understand the potential consequences before enacting something potentially rife with unintended consequences before dismantling a system.

We've lived with Zoning over a century and we ought to have an understanding of what unwanted changes could come about if that were suddenly lifted. It's not that we _should not_ do it but we should make changes in a measured, purposeful and understood manner so we don't end up like unregulated favelas (not in the sense of being mostly poor, but in the sense that anything goes.)