[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"?