[swozey]

> Giving up some aesthetic control means creating a city much more like Tokyo where building heights differ markedly even on lots next door to each other.

I've lived a ridiculous number of major USA cities and I'll never forget what Houston, which is the only one I can think of that had no zoning, looked like.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Wei...

[com2kid]

Here is a good article on Tokyo zoning: https://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.htm...

You'll notice that the model is additive instead of exclusionary. Basically if a block is zoned light commercial, you can put stores, apartments, or single family homes on it. Here is a nice chart https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lweabho82d0/U0HCJsQ3tbI/AAAAAAAAA...

Tokyo does zoning right, and the simplest first step to solve housing problems that plague major American cities is to just adopt a model of zoning that is proven to work.

[swozey]

> 1- Zoning is a *national law*, not a municipal by-law

A national zoning law is very interesting.

My biggest complaint about every city in TX I lived in (Houston, Austin, SATX, Dallas) was the lack of MDUs (among other things) causing them all to be painfully sparse. I lived in the densest neighborhoods I could find, usually Uptown or with Austin right off Guad by UT and 5th/Comal and my life now living in Denver which has a HUGE amount of MDUs/Duplexes/etc everywhere is so drastically different even though Denver has nowhere near the population of those. I haven't driven my car in months and nearly everyone I know lives in a 1-10 block radius.

What was my previous mountain view from my 4 story townhouse is now an 11 story office building directly behind me that glares down at my patio, though, so there's that. I think it's coming with 400-1000 car parking spots (underground garage).

We've been trying to get this (currently) low-traffic, low-mph throughfare street to completely ban car traffic and be turned into pedestrian/restaurant walking only, which it was during COVID and was wonderful, so that's probably dead in the water now.

[AnthonyMouse]

The main thing you actually want from zoning is to separate noxious/industrial uses from everything else. Houston is weird if it doesn't even do that. None of that other stuff is a problem. Living in a single-family home next to an office tower isn't any worse than living in a condo tower next to an office tower. People just aren't used to it because it's prohibited nearly anywhere else.

[returningfory2]

> Living in a single-family home next to an office tower isn't any worse than living in a condo tower next to an office tower.

By the way, this is very common in many Latin American countries such as Colombia. When you walk through these neighborhoods it's at first a bit odd because you're not used to seeing single family homes next to towers (coming from the US at least). But then you realize it's totally fine and the neighborhoods are in many cases really really nice.

I feel like one partial solution for NIMBY brain is travelling to cities in other countries and seeing things are different and realizing that it's actually totally fine.

[rootusrootus]

> I feel like one partial solution for NIMBY brain is travelling to cities in other countries and seeing things are different and realizing that it's actually totally fine.

I'd be surprised. Plenty of people would be horrified at the idea of living in a detached home next to a skyscraper.

[returningfory2]

That's sort of my point though. It's easy to be "horrified" by things in the abstract. But then you actually visit Bogota, Colombia or Buenos Aires, Argentina and go through these neighborhoods and realize they're actually really nice despite being different to what you're used to.

[AnthonyMouse]

Would they be equally horrified at living in a skyscraper next to a skyscraper?