
It’s Time to Abolish Single-Family Zoning - pseudolus
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/its-time-to-abolish-single-family-zoning/
======
cactus2093
I wonder if COVID-19 will have any lasting effect on housing patterns.

I used to be very pro-density in terms of my own preference of where to live,
and I’ve never lived in the suburbs or in a single family home in my adult
life.

I’m finding it very challenging while locked down though, it’s making me
realize I actually do value having my own space that I can own and control.
I’m pretty introverted to begin with but I’ve never minded living in a big
building with a bunch of strangers, but now that I see many of these strangers
doing things that potentially endanger my health like walking around without
masks, having illegal gatherings, and begging the management to reopen our gym
in the middle of this pandemic, my outlook has completely changed. Even once
this pandemic ends, I imagine I will think differently about the trade offs
and risks of living in such close quarters with so many people I don’t know.

This is not exactly related to single family zoning, but in the same vein I
imagine if I had a single family home and someone wanted to build a huge
apartment building next to me right now, I would be unhappy for the same
reasons. I’ve always been morally against NIMBYism on principle, but to be
honest this pandemic has really started to change my perspectives.

~~~
yohannparis
I disagree, cities have survived worse pandemics than todays. This is why we
have parks and pedestrians streets in Europe. What I see is a more livable
cities across North America, like NYC or DC.

------
obblekk
I’m surprised that free market enthusiasts don’t see zoning laws as a
limitation of freedom, even though it’s probably the most direct limitation by
government today.

There could be so much innovation in solving the NIMBY problem. Make a cash
payment to neighbors while construction is happening to compensate for the
nuisance, give them equity in your new building if their view is damaged,
obligate builders to also build bus stops/bike lanes/whatever to make the
streets navigable with high density, mixed use construction with privacy to
avoid strangers.

So many problems that people have with construction can be solved and
incentives aligned if people had the ability to try to convince their
neighbors.

Instead we’ve ended up with city councils that have high incumbency rates
because voting in city elections is cumbersome requiring you to convince the
whole city to change zoning rather than just your neighbors.

And I’m surprised politically liberal people aren’t even more in favor. So
many people want to move to the west coast but can’t due to cost of living.
Instead they move to the south and southwest. Even if California got a million
staunch republicans, the state would vote democratic overall and get more
electoral votes. In fact, I wonder if some of our political polarization is
the consequence of reduced mobility due to high housing costs for new people.

I’m hopeful the millennial generation fixes federal housing policy. That alone
would be a meaningful contribution to society.

~~~
fennecfoxen
If you’re surprised they’re not, it’s because you’re not looking. The actual
free market enthusiasts condemn it extensively.

Go over to reason.com and search for their zoning coverage. Go to the AEI and
find their report calling for the abolition of single family zoning. (I’d send
you links, but I’m on a phone.)

The main difference between them and the more left-leaning types who hate
single family zoning is that they’re not too big on replacing it with other
zoning.

~~~
voisin
> I’d send you links, but I’m on a phone.

Off topic but I feel like this all the time too. What do you think would have
to change about your phone to not feel like this? Voice commands? UI changes?

~~~
snarfy
Compared to a PC, copying and pasting on a phone is physically laborious.
Switching to the app, selecting the text, switching back, possibly fiddle with
the cursor position and then finally pasting by waiting for the phone to
interpret a long press as a paste command. It all sucks.

It would be nice if I could enter copy/paste mode, and when in that mode I had
a mouse cursor that I could move by holding my finger _above_ the screen (so I
can see the cursor), and basically use my finger like a virtual mouse during
the cut/paste operation.

~~~
Red_Leaves_Flyy
On android you can tap and hold the spacebar to slide the cursor around.

I'd love to have a phone case with a flip down physical keyboard and a dot
like on a ThinkPad. Think, old school game boy.

For the rest of my problems,we just need better integration and customization.
My last two phones have pop out drawers pinned to the sides. This can be taken
much further to provide instant access to the clip tray,
contacts,messages,emails, bookmarks, calender, password manager, and on and
on. But no. I get notifications from the top, which has the customizability of
a closed source terminal. From the bottom I have a barebones task bar. And I
can pin 5apps to a pinned button that I can dock up and down either side.
Can't even change its color tough. My current phone is leagues more powerful
than my first smart phone, but my first was more usable and customizable.

~~~
voisin
On iPhone you can either press and hold space bar (older iPhones with a
physical home button) or press and hold the empty space below the space bar
(newer iPhones with FaceID) to slide the cursor around with accuracy.

------
apoverton
Something that is not touched on in the post but the book The Color of Law
touches on in depth is how single family zoning has strong racist motivations.
There are many Suburban areas that had the exclusion of black people as a
requirement for Federal financial support. These include areas such as
Stanford/Palo Alto and Long Island in NY but the list is numerous.

~~~
andrewtbham
FTA: "The progressive left has discovered that single-family zoning has racist
underpinnings. That’s great, because we should now have no problem finding
common cause for repealing this most distorting of regulations, one that the
federal government never should have forced cities to adopt to begin with."

~~~
salawat
Since when has zoning _ever_ had anything to do with the Feds short of
Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management?

I'll accept at one time public works implementation of utility infrastructure
may have skewed things, but I was pretty sure issues of zoning were
predominantly local affairs.

~~~
wolrah
> Since when has zoning ever had anything to do with the Feds short of
> Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management?

What is it with this thread and not reading the article?

"The first of many ironies, of course, is that single-family zoning became the
standard for American suburbs during the New Deal when the Roosevelt
administration, through various programs such as the Home Owners Loan
Corporation, required it for home refinancing assistance.

These onerous regulations were further mandated for new construction by the
Federal Housing Administration as well as the government-sponsored enterprises
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

------
omosubi
I'd also be in favor of getting rid of parking minimums in cities and just
about everywhere else - an enormous benefit to car, oil and construction
companies that just degrades the environment.

~~~
Spivak
Which will tank home prices because suburbia is genuinely not livable without
a vehicle.

Public transportation doesn’t work since people are super spread out, all
commercial activity is miles away, your work is probably 20-60 min away by
car.

Abolishing parking minimums or generally discouraging cars in isolation just
makes everyone worse off. You have to make the area livable without a vehicle
first.

~~~
barrkel
Increased density makes public transport more viable. If you outlaw density
increase, you're definitely not going to get good public transport.

~~~
jansan
Let's face it, public transportation has not proved to be very helpful during
the COVID-19 pandemic. Here in Germany, private cars have saved our butt. I
have become much more sceptical towards public transport in the last few
months.

~~~
noirbot
How has Japan/South Korea worked around that? When I think of countries with
crowded public transit, Japan is always top of mind, but they seem to have
avoided a lot of the virus transmission problems you'd think would have been
associated with that.

~~~
jansan
Maybe, but on the other hand New York has fared tremendously bad. And in
Germany the public transport was working, but almost completely empty. Very
few were using it, everybody else relied on private cars.

~~~
noirbot
That's what I mean though - what are places like Tokyo doing that Berlin isn't
in this case? Or is the Tokyo subway as abandoned as NYC's these days?

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Because car ownership in much cheaper in Berlin and Germany as a whole than in
Tokyo so even if public transport would be safe in Berlin as it is in Tokyo,
if people are afraid of exposure, the Berliners have private alternatives
while people of Tokyo have to shrug it off on take the subway.

~~~
noirbot
But then wouldn't more people in Tokyo be catching the virus because they're
taking a train where they're in close poorly-ventilated proximity to a lot of
other people?

But instead, we're seeing their case load actually stay fairly reasonable
compared to NYC or Berlin, where there's more car usage.

------
sushshshsh
Over my dead body. Seriously, I lived in all kinds of apartments for 15 years
and there will always be some kind of horrific nuissance no matter how hard
everyone tries to be respectful of each other.

I'm all for increasing density, go ahead and build your buildings higher.

But don't do it at the expense of people who are willing to pay high premiums
to have a small piece of land to avoid the noise, smell, polution, and
crowding of apartments.

~~~
pseudolus
The article is calling for the abolition of single-family zoning, not the
imposition of zoning laws that mandate the construction of multi-family
dwellings. Essentially, the author is a property rights proponent - if you own
the land you should be able to construct whatever premises pleases you on it.

~~~
geebee
Should you be able to trade your right to construct whatever you want in
exchange for a legally enforced expectation that your neighbors will be
similarly restricted in what they can build? Plenty of people would like to
voluntarily enter that arrangement. Same with short term rentals - many people
would like to trade their right to run a hotel out of their residence in
exchange for a legally enforced expectation that they won't end up living next
to a hotel.

~~~
obblekk
Yes, but the law should enforce your agreement with your neighbors, not
obligate you to form an agreement as it does today.

I think the biggest issue in zoning is the lack of a path to unzone something.
If I convince all my immediate neighbors to let me build up (perhaps by giving
them some equity in the new building) I should be allowed by the law to build.
Today, even if my whole block wants to build up, we cannot.

~~~
geebee
Yes, good point. I would support a more local regulation on much of this (same
for Airbnb, I see no reason why people in the sunset should determine whether
people in bernal can short term rent their properties).

Personally, I don't think you should have to get universal agreement either.
Maybe a simple majority? Life does chance, cities grow to new borders, single
family zoning that made sense a generation ago can be absurd later.

As for zoning vs private contract... well, for historical reasons, that's just
how it works in older urban neighborhoods. That's the mechanism by which these
property rights are decided. It's not ideal. But at my core, I do think the
right to live in areas with certain building restrictions is a kind of
personal property right just as real as the right to build whatever you want.

------
goda90
This reminded me of an article I read about "dachas" in Russia, which are
basically allotted garden plots with a small house that tons of every-day
Russians have.[0]

Combined with plentiful public transit, remote work, good community
layouts,etc, I think the ideal living conditions for people would be something
like this. Low density housing, not made up of McMansions and chemical soaked
lawns, but of space where people can connect with nature, enjoy the land side
by side with neighbors and family.

[0][https://www.notechmagazine.com/2020/03/a-dacha-for-
everyone-...](https://www.notechmagazine.com/2020/03/a-dacha-for-everyone-
community-gardens-and-food-security-in-russia.html)

------
ralmidani
The US still has vast swaths of untouched land. WFH is feasible for many jobs.
And COVID-19 has shown how dangerous it is to keep people crowded together. If
anything, it’s time to spread out even more.

~~~
shawabawa3
The real problem with the world right now isn't Covid but the looming threat
of climate change

Densely populated cities may not be good for disease prevention but they are
much more efficient in terms of carbon cost per capita

~~~
ralmidani
Not a scientist so posing these as genuine questions: do crowded cities become
"hot spots" in terms of heat output (everyone has the A/C on, which leads to
heat building up, which leads to people blasting their A/C even higher, etc.)?
And does spreading people out give heat more room to dissipate?

~~~
cesarb
The term you are looking for is "urban heat island":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island)

------
marcoperaza
The author has plenty of good ideological arguments but doesn't really seem
interested in what the effect of eliminating single-family zoning will be on
day to day life for people and communities. People like living in single-
family zoned neighborhoods. People don't want high-density development in
their neighborhoods. People leave behind exciting city lives and move to the
suburbs because they want to live somewhere peaceful, boring, low-crime. Now
someone wants to transform their neighborhood and make it look like those
places they decided not to live in.

As for this guy calling himself a conservative, somewhere along the way,
libertarians in America began calling themselves conservatives and forgot what
the term really means. Conservatism isn't knee-jerk ideological opposition to
any rules.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
There are countless people who live happily in areas that don't have single-
family zoning. So I don't know what effects you would expect, other than an
increased availability of housing. Low-rise zoning makes sense - some people
just don't like having a skyscraper next door - but I don't see any reason
that a 6-unit apartment building would infringe on the day to day life of
people in the 2 story house next door.

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dillonmckay
Right to Quiet Enjoyment

[https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/quiet-
enjoyme...](https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/quiet-enjoyment-
laws.html)

------
dillonmckay
I live next door to a single—family home that was ‘converted’ to a duplex in
an area where vehicles are required.

There are only 2 parking spots available, and the upstairs unit was converted
in such a way that the only way to get to the bathroom is through the kitchen.

The side of the house was ‘modified’ to provide a front-door to the upstairs
unit. However, this door is less than 6 feet from my fence, so it is
impossible for anybody to move furniture in or out of the home.

~~~
greenonions
Do you live there? Is this somehow your problem? Do you know anyone who would
like/needs to deal with those inconveniences in order to save money on rent?

I'm being a jerk, but even if you find something objectionable doesn't mean
that it doesn't have a purpose.

Unless you're willing to buy the place, renovate in a way you see fit, and try
to rent for a profit, then you should not spend so much time being concerned
about this house.

~~~
dillonmckay
Well, the tenants are evicted after several months.

The tenants, or their visitors, will park in other peoples yards.

The landlord will make deals to waive the security deposit in exchange for
‘fixing up’ the units, after the prior tenant trashes it.

So, ‘saving money’, is really externalizing the costs to the surrounding
neighbors.

My plan is to purchase it, and raze it to the ground, honestly.

So, the neighbor that has a bunch of money, and sees the lot next door become
‘denser’, why not buy all the units and create a buffer?

------
ip26
I was excited to see a professedly conservative site confronting popular
subsidies. That's something valuable the classical conservative viewpoint
could contribute to the discussion.

Sadly, as I reached the end I knew- only one person could have written this.
Marohn is, unfortunately, still bearing his torch alone.

The comments on the site are basically "don't touch my handouts" and "suburbs
are the last stronghold against the brown people".

------
xnx
Could the zoning situation be improved with the concept of shared air-rights?
Note that this is non an idea I've researched at all. Any property you own
would also include partial air-rights for surrounding properties. If a new
development was going to cast a shadow on to your property, they would need to
buy you out of those air rights. You're never forced to sell, but many would
be happy to if the price was right.

------
cultus
That's easy to say when your local politics isn't controlled by homeowners who
have financial incentive to oppose density.

~~~
adwww
I don't know if that's true though.

Your standalone plot is surely worth more in an area that more people want to
live in, and where developers could potentially buy it off you to subdivide
and turn into multiple homes?

------
ed25519FUUU
There’s a lot of problems that are still even unrelated to zoning. For
example, San Jose has _25 feet_ setback rules for houses from the street. Can
you imagine how much square footage could be added overnight if people were
allowed to build closer to the sidewalks?

------
jansan
Serious question, how does subsidizing work in these cases. Will the
government subsidize the land price in single family zones? How does it work

~~~
someguydave
Federal mortgage subsidies are tied to single family housing as well.

~~~
vonmoltke
I'm not sure what other "subsidies" you are talking about, but the mortgage
interest deduction has nothing to do with the type of construction or zoning.
Neither are FHA loan programs.

~~~
ip26
It isn't directly tied to zoning, but it provides the greatest benefit to
people with expensive houses and high incomes.

[https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/who-benefits-tax-
subs...](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/who-benefits-tax-subsidies-
home-ownership)

------
tomohawk
The cities in our area are heavily subsidized by the state. The state collects
the vast majority of its taxes from the suburbs.

In return, the cities here have non-functioning schools, despite being well
funded. The cities have very high crime, and basic services in the cities are
lacking.

There is a perpetual cycle of 20 somethings moving into the cities as they
start their careers, and then moving to the burbs within 5-10 years as they
realize that their kids will be uneducated if they remain there, and they will
get mugged every couple of years.

------
sradman
> When it comes to housing policy, we conservatives run the risk of becoming a
> caricature of ourselves, long on reactionary impulse but short on principle.

There are two principles dear to conservatives that form an antagonistic
relationship in this case: 1. minimal government intervention, and 2. emergent
common law/standards. When left alone, homeowner associations (HOAs) tend to
form single-family zoning policies. I'm not sure how to square this circle.

~~~
someguydave
HOA law is a mess and needs repeal/reform from the state governments

~~~
megiddo
HOAs survive because they are able to socialize long-term costs of maintaining
them.

If an HOA mandates single-family dwellings and large set-backs, then it should
be directly responsible for road maintenance, sanitation, fire, etc. If you
want all those long roads, you have to pay for them.

The way it works now is that a developer drops in an HOA with a restrictive
covenant, then turns the mess over to the nearest city to maintain a bunch of
excessive infrastructure.

If an HOA can't be maintained (bankruptcy) then the covenant should be
automatically dissolved and the easements lifted.

~~~
someguydave
Yes. In colorado they actually have a mechanism where the city and developer
can conspire to create a special tax district for each development area.

------
chaboud
What manifests in the linked writing is a near-perfect articulation of the
head-scratching argumentation made by old-school fiscal conservatives when
confronting the actions of now-dominant social conservatives.

Calls to demonstrate conservative principles of small government, to spurn the
transfer of funds from blue states to red states, and to reject racist
policies are appeals to fiscal conservatism and proponents of small
government. Unfortunately for the author, that's a plainly antiquated cause in
American conservative politics.

The wedge issues, antagonistic framing, and outright racism leveraged to build
a coopted support base have broken out of the petri dish and taken over the
host, leaving old school fiscal conservatives and small-government idealists
thoughtfully trying to state their points as they get shoved into a school
locker or quietly shaking their heads as they wonder how to make the trade off
worth it.

In a way, it represents a now set-aside third political body, one that
liberals would do well to include, learn from, and leverage. There are people
who wish to ask interesting questions, theorize, advocate, and meaningfully
govern (even if it's in a very different way).

~~~
greenonions
I think the third party you're alluding to is the demographic that actually
cares about improving things for most people, regardless of the political
philosophy that the idea comes from.

I've always thought there should be more like us than the other type of people
who are purely idealogical, but that's exactly what everyone else thinks.

At least I can console myself knowing I don't support such hilariously
incongruent ideas as the social conservatives you mention. But I'm not sure
how what I believe are good policies for most actually win out

------
RNCTX
Bet you won't have to dig far to find that the author of the article is an
apartment developer or very adjacent to one.

~~~
greenonions
He's the founder of Strong Towns:
[https://www.strongtowns.org/about](https://www.strongtowns.org/about) a non
profit advocacy for financial stability in communities. His background is
civil engineering.

