
North American vs. Japanese zoning - oftenwrong
http://devonzuegel.com/post/north-american-vs-japanese-zoning
======
avar
Somewhat tangential: One of the things I was most disappointed in when
visiting Japan was discovering (at least in Tokyo, Kyoto etc.) that they don't
really seem to have the concept of a public green space as it exists in
Europe.

Instead most of these parks have fences around the grass, and you're not
allowed to lie down there and hang out. Some are also "temples" and have
guards that'll yell at you if you even sit down out of the way on some stairs
for a second.

I live in Amsterdam, and in general I'd much prefer living in a smaller house
with no yard of my own if there's a big park nearby, but in Japan I'm not so
sure. If I can't use the park for anything worthwhile (lie in the sun, have a
BBQ etc.) I'd rather just live in an American-style suburb with my own small
yard.

~~~
zumu
There are plenty of parks in Japan where people hang out, lay in the grass,
play instruments, practice their lines, drink socially, enjoy their lunch,
walk their dogs, go for runs, etc.

I suspect what is a park and what isn't might not be easy to tell as a
tourist. If you are trying to lounge in something that isn't technically a
park, there's a good chance it won't be received well.

That being said, in Tokyo, most of the central public parks are packed during
the weekends. Tokyo could definitely use a lot more, imho.

------
morley
I find these types of articles invigorating and demoralizing at the same time.
I think the reason why, and something I've thought about a lot lately, is:
what would it actually take to do something like this? It'd probably involve a
series of steps like this to do _exactly_ this:

* Decide to run for office

* Raise an enormous amount of money, somehow without indebting yourself to private interests

* Convince a large amount of people to vote you into office

* Bring to bear an enormous amount of political capital to convince other people to enact these changes

That involves no small amount of luck and personal charisma. I probably have
none of these things, so that leaves me out.

There are other methods that are potentially easier (the one that comes to
mind is effectively paying off an incumbent politician), but I'd roughly guess
that there's only a 40-60% chance to get the outcome you want. Even easier
actions, like calling your representatives, I'd peg at 2-5% expected value.
Voting is <0.1%.

Are these really our only options? Am I thinking about this problem wrong? Is
this just the great struggle of human governance we've been trying to solve
for millenia?

~~~
jjaredsimpson
A real problem is that public service is underpaid. I live in a state with a
part time legislature that is paid $27k/year. I'm never going to run for
office and derail my life by earning next to nothing and being co-mingled into
a system I find full of corrupt and detestable people.

America has a perverse relationship with politics, politicians, and
governance. Politicians do some of the most important work possible in our
society, but by underpaying you only attract certain types of people. Either
those just hungry for power, using office as a stepping stone to wealth. Or
those already wealthy looking to maintain existing structures and protect
their wealth.

I don't mean to sound flippant. Our system of government is an evolved process
settled on over millennia. It's really close to some local maximum.

My gripes are mostly centered around complaining that we "all know" there are
obvious problems with the system but there isn't some obvious "continuous"
path of from here to a better system.

If I were benevolent dictator I'd like to see something like futarchy. And
even while saying that I'm not sure if it just appeals to my hyper rationalism
or if it's genuinely better. I assume current legislator suffer from this same
bias on all kinds of issues.

~~~
raldi
It's true; here in San Francisco, the annual city budget is $11B, and each of
the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors makes $110,000 a year (which sounds
like a lot until you find out that thanks to our housing shortage, HUD defines
the local "low-income" threshold as $117,400).

The 11 supervisors are the equivalent of senior executives. How much do you
think a senior executive of a company with $11B revenue gets paid?

As a result, we get supervisors like Aaron Peskin (who's a landlord on the
side and pushes civic policy that obstructs the creation of new apartments) or
Chris Daly (basically a clown).

~~~
pound
it's $117,400 for the family of 4

~~~
emmett
You don't think a city supervisor should be able to support a family of 4
without being classified as low income?

------
21
For the land of the free, some US rules are a shock to me.

Like how in many places you are not allowed to have a brown lawn, or one with
taller weeds instead of grass.

> Grass or weeds taller than 8 inches is in violation of Minneapolis
> ordinance. If grass or weeds are taller than 8", an inspector may issue an
> order to the property owner giving them at least 3 days to cut it. If the
> violation is not corrected, inspectors may authorize a contractor to cut the
> grass and assess the costs and administrative fees to the owner.

~~~
Spivak
The rules are a bit crazy but they're not born out of malice -- they basically
exist to control negative externalities and protect the property values of the
neighborhood.

It's a very real fear that one of your neighbors will drive people away from
your neighborhood, tank property values, and suddenly you have 20 families
underwater on their mortgage. These rules are kinda dumb and often go way far
because HoA members get a little drunk with power but they're essential for
mobility in suburbia.

~~~
humanrebar
Family homes should have stopped being investment vehicles a long time ago.

If we want affordable housing, housing costs must necessarily fall behind
inflation, which is the thing brown lawn regulations are trying to prevent.

I'm not saying brown lawns are _the_ way to lower housing prices, but the
whole point rests on the value judgement that expensive housing is better.

~~~
davidw
At least it's brown _lawns_ people don't want in their neighborhoods these
days.

~~~
monocasa
It's still both.

~~~
stronglikedan
It's still both _everywhere_ , but not as much _anywhere_ as some would like
to believe. It's better now than it ever was, and as long as it keeps moving
in that direction that's a good thing.

~~~
monocasa
I mean, schools are more segregated now then they were 40 years ago. So no,
it's not better than it ever was, it's just more quiet.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-
sheet/wp/2013/08/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-
sheet/wp/2013/08/29/report-public-schools-more-segregated-now-than-40-years-
ago/)

~~~
stronglikedan
That's just one data point in one area, and doesn't necessarily reflect
racism. My general statement is still accurate - racism has been and still is
on the decline.

------
slivym
As a Brit something that always struck me as strange was that Americans all
seemed to own large, detatched houses. It just seemed odd to me, and whilst
it's true that a lot of the US is less dense than the UK I find it fascinating
that the zoning laws seem to massively encourage and protect single family
homes.

~~~
tudelo
Do you not want a large, detached house? :) I think part of it has to do with
the fact that that is what people want... When you have such a place you don't
have to worry as much about how much noise you're making or if you're
disturbing your neighbors.

~~~
Zach_the_Lizard
> Do you not want a large, detached house? :) I think part of it has to do
> with the fact that that is what people want

If people truly wanted this, we wouldn't need a large zoning law apparatus to
legally enforce it, now would we?

Historically these laws came about due to White Flight and wanting to keep the
"other" people out.

My hypothesis is these laws persist due to effectively creating legally
enforced housing cartel, pushing up house prices. Throw in some rent control
to turn some poor folks against new housing, and you've got a recipe for ever
increasing house prices, falling fertility rates, and the squeezing of the
middle class.

~~~
Spivak
People absolutely want large detached houses, but housing developers want to
build densely packed multi-family housing because they're more profitable.

Here's the problem:

\- Start with a nice, quiet, picturesque suburban neighborhood.

\- Naturally people want to move into this neighborhood because it's so nice
and want it to be affordable so, absent zoning, developers build apartments
and condos to fill the need.

\- Then all the people move in and the neighborhood slowly learns that the
reason it was actually nice and picturesque was the low density and high buy-
in.

\- Property values start going down, along with tax revenue, the schools
decline, $/student plummets, and all the people with the means move somewhere
else.

Without at least some laws it's incredibly difficult to break this cycle.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> People absolutely want large detached houses, but housing developers want to
> build densely packed multi-family housing because they're more profitable.

They also cost less per unit, which is a thing people (i.e. new homeowners)
like even more.

> \- Property values start going down, along with tax revenue, the schools
> decline, $/student plummets, and all the people with the means move
> somewhere else.

This can be solved by adjusting the mil rate to generate the original amount
of property tax revenue per unit against the lower housing prices.

I also don't see how the cycle is not self-defeating. If there are a hundred
low density units and someone builds a hundred high density units near them so
the original inhabitants leave and build a hundred new low density units
somewhere else, now there are three hundred housing units available. The
higher supply reduces the profit in building new condos anywhere in the
region. If the cycle repeats then even more housing is constructed. At some
point the profit in building new condos falls below the construction cost,
because people don't want to live in a condo in the otherwise low density area
more than they want to have a much smaller mortgage payment.

~~~
emodendroket
In this scenario a lot of people probably still have to commute to the city or
nearby so moving to further and further rings out has real disadvantages

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> In this scenario a lot of people probably still have to commute to the city
> or nearby so moving to further and further rings out has real disadvantages

This is obviously an argument _in favor_ of high density zoning. Even if you
want to live in a detached single family home, you want as many other people
as possible to be able to live in high density housing to minimize the amount
of land you have to drive through between your home and the city.

~~~
emodendroket
Perhaps, but you can see how this is not necessarily a situation where what's
good for the goose is good for the gander.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
"Screw all of you, I've got mine" seems like it shouldn't be a winning policy
argument.

------
pluma
As a European I guess this explains why Sim City's zoning never made much
sense to me.

------
kindatrue
Not mentioned: In America, owning a home is considered the most important
investment you can make.

Who would've thought that mindset would lead to unaffordable housing!

Or parents telling their children that they won't be able to live near their
parents because... well... investment! Like this guy:
[https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245](https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245)

~~~
gascan
I would think owning your place of residence would be a pretty good long term
investment most anyplace. It's practically a fundamental rule of the market;
more expensive to rent than own long term.

~~~
closeparen
This is mainly a psychological trick: people are more disciplined about paying
a mortgage under threat of foreclosure than they are about actually investing
the savings from renting. But if you do actually invest the savings, they come
out pretty close. There are a lot of costs to owning a home beyond the
principal payment.

~~~
gascan
Even after the mortgage is paid off?

~~~
closeparen
You have a pretty good chunk of capital (and capital gains) after investing in
index funds for 30 years. That is, after all, how retirement works.

------
crawshaw
Comparisons between the governments of homogeneous states like Japan and
sprawling unions like the USA are not particularly helpful. The nature of the
problems the governments face is too different.

Instead, compare California to Japan. From this article, run the thought
experiment of a California-wide zoning board.

------
vorpalhex
So the linked article doesn't directly cite any work but does provide
highlighted notes for an article, which I followed... which also doesn't
actually cite anything. So I went down a rabbit hole of researching early
zoning laws to evaluate a very specific claim: that the origin of zoning laws
is racist.

In 1917 Buchanan v Warley mades directly racist zoning illegal... which
affected a single city in Kentucky and otherwise had very little effect. In
addition, the very first zoning laws didn't get passed until 1910 in the US
and zoning didn't exist much until the 1920s [1] so that seems to undermine
that claim as an emotional, not a factual one.

Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply
build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down
right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller
and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system
[3] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low
density options.

[1] -
[https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/02-03.pdf](https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/02-03.pdf)

[3] - [https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/08/31/high-
rise...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/08/31/high-rise-glut-
affordable-housing/#6f2ce63753e0)

\--

[2] - [http://marketurbanism.com/2017/11/01/does-density-raise-
hous...](http://marketurbanism.com/2017/11/01/does-density-raise-housing-
prices/)

~~~
pitaj
Zoning laws _were_ created by progressives for racist reasons

[http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-oe-
vallianato...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-oe-vallianatos-
sb-827-housing-zoning-20180402-story.html)

[https://reason.com/archives/2014/04/02/zonings-racist-
roots-...](https://reason.com/archives/2014/04/02/zonings-racist-roots-still-
bear-fruit)

Federal policies were also motivated by racism

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-
rac...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-racist-
housing-policy-that-made-your-neighborhood/371439/)

and the federal housing project program created ghettos under the guise of
providing adorable housing for the poor. They just wanted to concentrate the
poor (read "black people") in certain areas.

~~~
monocasa
It's not really fair to blame this kind of stuff on progressives.

For instance, that Reason article calls "Barry Mahool" (actually J. Barry
Mahool), a progressive and doesn't really elaborate beyond that, letting the
reader assume that his progressivness extending to racial thought at the time.
Looking into it, he seems to be thought of a progressive because of his out
spoken support for women's suffrage, but as for black people he created the
zoning laws as "Blacks should be quarantined in isolated slums in order to
reduce the incidents of civil disturbance, to prevent the spread of
communicable disease into the nearby White neighborhoods, and to protect
property values among the White majority".

That's like calling Dick Cheney a progressive because of his out spoken
support for gay marriage.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Barry_Mahool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Barry_Mahool)

[https://www.asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-
readings/silver%20-...](https://www.asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-
readings/silver%20--%20racialoriginsofzoning.pdf)

~~~
pitaj
The first progressives came out of the eugenics movement. They were all huge
racists. Woodrow Wilson, one of the first progressive presidents, was
responsible for segregating the military.

~~~
monocasa
Words change meaning over time. The progressive era of 1890 to 1920 is a
completely different movement than that of today.

~~~
pitaj
Ok? I never said it was the progressives of today.

~~~
monocasa
Without context that you're using a word with a century old archaic
definition, yes, the assumption is that the progressive movement of today has
racist roots.

~~~
pitaj
The progressive movement can't just isolate itself from the evil, bigoted
legacy it has.

Modern progressives support most of the same policies, but for supposedly
different reasons. They still see older progressives as heroes for
implementing those policies, despite their bigoted intentions at the time.

~~~
monocasa
They're two different progressive movements. One that died out around 1920,
and the current one today. Just because they use the same word, doesn't mean
it's the same movement.

------
gallerdude
Imagine we immediately changed to Japan’s system - do you think us Americans
would do a good job utilizing it?

I think the Japanese system is better, I just fear that part of the benefit
they have is cultural (harder to implement than laws).

~~~
TulliusCicero
Changing to it immediately would be impractical, but a steady transition would
be pretty easily feasible, outside of the political concerns.

It's not like dense, mixed-use areas don't exist in the US -- NYC being the
most obvious example. They're just uncommon because regulations force them to
be uncommon. Where they do exist they work fine.

~~~
emodendroket
I suggest you pick up a small-town paper talking about any proposed
development at all to get a sense of issues that exist beyond just whatever
old zoning laws are on the books. People have lots of reasons for not wanting
that to happen -- some, granted, are silly, but not all of them are.

~~~
rayiner
They’re all silly (often racist). In Annapolis, there is opposition to
redeveloping City Dock, which is old and gross, for “historical preservation.”

~~~
emodendroket
I don't know anything about Annapolis and won't weigh in on that one. But I do
understand why people don't want compressor stations or nuclear waste near
their homes, for instance.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Getting pretty sick of this strawman. Nobody's ever suggesting getting rid of
zoning rules that keep polluting factories and similar buildings away from
residential areas.

Like, this is very explicit in the article for this thread even, and somehow
it still comes up.

~~~
emodendroket
The compressor station thing is on the top of my mind because they want to
build one in my town. Anyway there is a wide gradient; a bar isn't quite as
undesirable as some of the industrial facilities, but it can still be
disruptive to someone who lives nearby.

~~~
TulliusCicero
A bar is a fair example, nuclear waste really isn't (we can't even
collectively agree to put it under actual fucking mountains in apocalypse-
proof vaults).

Anyway if you look in the article it talks about how you still exclude things
from residential areas based on level of nuisance. Presumably a compressor
station could qualify.

~~~
emodendroket
It kind of gets to the anxiety about handing over control though. Towns do not
get to decide whether they'll have a compressor station so a number have been
built over community objections. I'm not really a local-government fetishist
but I would be worried about how responsive a more centralized system would be
to resident complaints.

------
dghughes
As interesting as the article is why is it titled North America vs Japan? Not
USA vs Japan or North America vs Asia? There are 23 countries and almost two
dozen dependencies in North America.

------
knuththetruth
It would be great to have improved zoning, but switching to Japanese-style
zoning in the US doesn’t solve the problem of US housing being an investment
vehicle for Global Capital.

In Japan, land itself keeps its (high) value, but still mostly grows/tracks
with inflation. Houses themselves are seen as disposable with an approximately
30 year shelf-life.

~~~
Tiktaalik
Yeah exactly. People love to compare zoning systems, but that's just a tiny
slice of the picture. Among many, many other factors there is also the
cultural attitude toward housing which is different from NA.

------
api
This is something concrete we could push for to fix California's housing
crisis. Something like this at the state level would go a long way toward
making it easier to build efficiently so that supply can increase to match
demand.

------
jdhn
The biggest change I see from the NA model is that localities don't really
have the ability to make their own rules. Seems like this would require a very
strong movement at the state level to ever implement something like this.

~~~
slivym
There's literally no chance of that happening in the US for fundamentally
philosophical reasons. Politically the US has a very strong preference for
pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European
countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach.

~~~
Spooky23
That's an inaccurate characterization.

The Federal government has a minimal direct impact on civil administration in
populated areas and always has. Land use, code enforcement, permitting, police
and similar functions are all state responsibilities that are delegated to
varying degrees to county or municipal government.

US States are also nominally sovereign. It's less philosophy and more legal.

------
claydavisss
This would be a disaster in the US. This surely victimizes some in Japan also
but because of cultural differences you just get more silent suffering.

Even if implemented, the new Federal Zoning Board would be obligated to honor
pre-existing zoning rules. If not, the party holding power in Washington at
the time would get demolished. What politician will risk telling an entire
state of voters that their assumptions about their property are going to be
unilaterally changed? No one, it would be political suicide.

Accurate or not, any politician proposing this would be accused of trying to
socialize housing.

~~~
emn13
I'd say it's the opposite: the US system is quite rigid and micromanages how
society builds. Limiting the power of government to regulate only broader,
more overlapping categories is quite the opposite of socialism in the US
sense; it's more like liberalism.

But mostly, comparing either to a political philosophy sounds far-fetched. But
hey, it's politics, so you may be right somebody will be accused of socialism,
however nonsensical that is.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
> US system is quite rigid and micromanages how society builds.

This varies a ton from city to city. My general perception is that the
cities/towns that tend to be more likely to praise European ways of doing
zoning/development are more rigid ones when it comes to zoning so it's much
harder to actually do mixed development in those places because of all the
boxes checked and signatures required to do it and comply with local
regulation. I find this contradiction somewhat comical.

~~~
scarejunba
There are no such American cities.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I said "praise", not "successfully implement"

------
closeparen
We’re headed towards a new caste system in America: those who inherit houses /
tax concessions / rent control in productive places, and those who don’t. In
many ways this will be a rebalancing, as the middle-class from places on the
way down gets locked out of the labor force and the poor from places on the
way up find themselves with exclusive access to booming jobs markets. But I’d
anticipate some _serious_ civil unrest before the border controls around
wealth centers like the Bay Area are truly solidified.

~~~
TFortunato
br3aer1t

------
csomar
When I was a child and living my parents we had two properties: One small
apartment in the city, and a big house with a sizable garden (like 50-60
trees) far in the suburb. We live 5 day of the week in the apartment and spend
the weekend on the suburb.

I think it was the best setup. You get both of best world. During the week you
are close to work, school, services and need absolutely no transportation. In
the weekend you can barbecue.

Americans can have that luxury. I guess they just need to work harder to be
able to afford two properties?

------
paulgrimes1
“Category II Residential Zone: The permitted buildings include shops, offices,
and hotel buildings as well as buildings with karaoke box”

------
tawm
Are there any other examples of countries using a Japanese zoning system?

~~~
hrktb
I think France has a similar system of threshold. You have residential areas,
commercial areas, industrial areas and so on, with increasing permission to do
whatever you want.

That often means tall residential buildings will be near commercial areas,
huge residential complexes (often for social residence) near industrial area.

------
g8oz
The discourse within the planning profession has to change before this type of
innovative thinking can make any headway in N. America.

------
beebmam
Japanese real estate has been in a rut for decades. I don't think Japan is the
right country to compare the US to as a model to admire.

------
sgt
"greatly limits density" "strangles redevelopment" "keeps neighborhoods in
formaldehyde"

This article sounds somewhat socialist and left leaning and assumes that such
a "Japanese system" is what most families actually want.

If you have a house in a typical middle class neighborhood, practically
speaking you don't want neighborhood to densify too much. With higher density
comes a lot more people living in the same street as you, and with that comes
noise, more traffic and less personal space which can have negative
psychological impacts on some people.

It also comes back to the arguments for an against planning and development of
cities; just because there is an open area available, should we really develop
everything? I realize that we live in a world with a booming population, but
it doesn't mean that we should aim to fill every square meter on this planet
with people.

 __Edited open space- >personal space. Sorry guys.

~~~
adrianN
Density doesn't mean that there are no open spaces left. On the contrary. If
you build denser you have more room to spare. I'd much rather have a couple of
large parks and urban forests like for example here in Berlin instead of a few
hundred square meters of yards and garages around each house that nobody but
the owners can use.

~~~
sgt
You are basically saying that people should be couped up in tiny little
shoeboxes, so that parks can be larger. I don't mind bigger parks, but it's
very nice to have a big yard and a garage too. With a city like approach in
the suburbs, you will have less personal space. I am not talking extreme here
- regular American properties in most middle class areas work just fine in my
opinion, and they are usually not overly large.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Nobody's talking about outlawing SFH's. You can still have a big yard if you
want it. But allowing smaller forms is good for a number of reasons:
supporting multi-modal transportation, environmental impact, and reducing
economic segregation among them.

