[Schiendelman]

Zoning should always have been unconstitutional, and the court case enabling it proved that.

The Supreme Court upheld it a hundred years ago, in 1926, after batting down previous efforts by the same people to explicitly ban black people from neighborhoods. They realized that since black families couldn't afford houses by themselves (they needed to buy houses with two or three families together), they could get around it with single family zoning. Ever wondered why it isn't called "house" zoning? Because it was segregation.

The appellate court in the case threw out zoning, because it was so obvious that it was about race. The Supreme Court overturned it by ignoring the entire appellate court decision and defining a building itself (apartments) as a nuisance, instead of making the petitioners regulate actual behaviors. Because the behaviors weren't the problem, it was the black people they didn't want.

Sorry - this riles me up. :)

You should absolutely not be able to have a say over how much housing your neighbor builds. Sure, if they make noise, or bad smells, or bright lights, THAT you should be able to regulate. But the outcomes of having a say over how much housing your neighbor can build is the strongest root of a whole host of issues - from CO2 to obesity to high commute times and traffic to municipal budget bloat. It causes sprawl. Increasingly, parts of the left and right are starting to realize we need to overturn it.

[robocat]

We have zoning in New Zealand and it wasn't started by segregation.

Zoning has other reasons than racism.

Oversimplifying things down to single causes is an error of thinking.

[Schiendelman]

You've never heard of papakainga?

Zoning and land use code in New Zealand is one of the better examples of structural racism.

In housing law in the United States, we've figured out that because people often use feelings rather than clear statements for their reasoning, we had to pay attention to disparate impact, rather than discriminatory intent.

What you'll find is that in nearly every country, zoning and similar laws originate in or were dramatically expanded to exclude wealth generation by minority groups.

[robocat]

I think you're talking about something different.

My context is discriminatory urban zoning (à la exclusionary zoning or redlining in the US).

I am not sure there are any examples of that for urban zoning in New Zealand. Please enlighten me if you know better.

I agree there is plenty of history of terrible treatment of maori and their land in NZ, but that is a different topic and not relevant. I admit I am ignorant about the history of urban planning in NZ.

[apparent]

What part of the Constitution is violated by zoning laws?

I have heard of laws that prevent the construction of structures that shade other properties (skyscrapers) or block views of the ocean. If those are apparently legal, why not a law that says you can't build a big apartment complex that would greatly increase traffic, for example?

[Schiendelman]

See the Village of Euclid v Ambler Realty case, which is what I'm referencing in my long comment. A federal appeals court found that those restrictions were racially motivated and cause racial segregation, which is unconstitutional (and we've studied this to death since to confirm it). The Supreme Court, nine white guys... ignored that finding when overturning the appellate court decision.

[apparent]

> The Supreme Court, nine white guys... ignored that finding when overturning the appellate court decision.

Higher courts are allowed to overturn lower courts. That's kind of the whole point of the hierarchy.

But regardless, that case was from 100 years ago. Are you saying that the reason people enact zoning laws now is the same? I love living in a suburb and would be equally displeased whether my neighborhood turned into apt complexes, regardless of the complexion of the residents.

[Schiendelman]

Of course you would. That's why it sticks around, because you get regulatory capture. It's the same reason we don't let a CEO write the rules for regulating their own company's competition. That's another more modern reason why it is unconstitutional, it just hasn't been challenged.

[apparent]

Perhaps I have a different understanding of "regulatory capture" than you do. To me, it means that the regulators are captured by the entities they are supposed to be regulating. It often happens when the main job prospects for people in an industry are either as regulators or in industry. If an oil company offers jobs to policy maker whose boss gets voted out of Congress, they can "capture" the regulators, who won't want to kill their golden ticket.

I'm unclear how this applies to zoning rules voted on by the people who live in an area. There is not an intermediary "zoning regulator" who is capturing anyone. Similarly, there is not a constituency that is being "captured" inappropriately. It is literally just a group of people deciding how they want to live.

If this is regulatory capture, then so is having laws against automatic weapons and speeding.

[Schiendelman]

The harms potentially caused by shooting someone or hitting them with your car at high speed are not the same as someone building something next to you that you find aesthetically displeasing. Can I ask you to step back and think about the fact that you just made that comparison?