
We Regulate the Wrong Things - oftenwrong
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/10/31/we-regulate-the-wrong-things
======
masklinn
> “It’s too tall” is a common refrain in public hearings to approve new
> construction, but I’m honestly puzzled by the obsession with the notion of a
> building’s height as a measure of compatibility with its surroundings. I
> think the importance of height in and of itself is vastly overstated.

That is true, height is often a bad proxy for some other quality you're
looking for and which could be solved in original ways besides height e.g. in
the north east you'd want enough light to reach the street and avoid gloomy
alleys, besides height you could manage it by removing wedges of the building
(from a basic cuboid shape), or having a front courtyard or a large atrium, or
yes height. Height also becomes a factor of the street width, narrower streets
would tend to get shorter buildings.

Furthermore regulating height can be counter-productive: while you want to
avoid excessive shade in the north-east, in the south-west you want to do the
exact opposite, much like cities of northern africa or the middle east, for an
arizonan or texan city to be walkable it needs shade and air flow rather than
light: you need buildings tall enough that they protect pedestrians from the
sun (without falling into gloom), but you also want them to guide and amplify
the slightest breeze.

> 3\. Land Use

> Segregation of uses is the most important of those features. The biggest
> factor that predicts walkability is the presence of actual destinations in
> walking distance of where people live. The postwar paradigm has been to
> rigidly control where commercial land uses can go and where they can’t,
> based on the premise that they are a nuisance in a residential
> neighborhood—bringing traffic, noise, and possibly crime. Yet all commercial
> uses are not created equal.

Many places segregate by _maximum nuisance_ rather than specific land use:
plots are give an maximum nuisance level, and businesses are charted according
to the expected nuisance they produce. Anything below the plot's MNL is
allowed and thus your small corner shop or barbershop (low-nuisance
businesses) can live in a "residential" area, but a nightclub or a machine
shop probably can't.

~~~
bobthepanda
> hat is true, height is often a bad proxy for some other quality you're
> looking for and which could be solved in original ways besides height e.g.
> in the north east you'd want enough light to reach the street and avoid
> gloomy alleys, besides height you could manage it by removing wedges of the
> building (from a basic cuboid shape)

This is actually why Manhattan's older buildings look the way they do, with a
distinctive 'cake tower' look, but the actual fight for sunlight has been a
lot more complicated: [https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/12/how-the-battle-
for-su...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/12/how-the-battle-for-sunlight-
shaped-new-york-city/510917/)

> Segregation of uses is the most important of those features. The biggest
> factor that predicts walkability is the presence of actual destinations in
> walking distance of where people live. The postwar paradigm has been to
> rigidly control where commercial land uses can go and where they can’t,
> based on the premise that they are a nuisance in a residential
> neighborhood—bringing traffic, noise, and possibly crime. Yet all commercial
> uses are not created equal.

Most Americans these days live in suburbs, and I can't really think of many
that don't adopt rigid single-use zoning.

~~~
sandworm101
>> The biggest factor that predicts walkability is the presence of actual
destinations in walking distance of where people live.

Refrigeration. In days past people needed to make regular trips to buy food.
We needed lots of stores, butchers, bakers and such within walking distance.
(Think a metal shop is a nuisance? Imagine living downwind of an open-air
butcher's yard.) Today, largely thanks to refrigeration, we can purchase
larger volumes and keep them safely in our homes. So we don't need to go to
the store every day, and when we do we purchase more than we can easily carry.
This isn't a bad thing. It has freed up countless man-hours increased our
dietary options. Not every urbanization problem is about cars.

~~~
mamon
I actually hate the fact that in USA you can only shop for groceries in a
supermarket that is 5 miles away.

Problem with that is that if you happen to run out of milk,or salt, etc., you
have to plan the whole trip, instead just quickly coming downstairs and buying
it in the grocery store that is in the same building as your apartment.

Another problem is that instead of buying fresh bread everyday in your local
bakery you have to buy this packaged, loaded with chemical conservants shit
that supermarkets sell.

Grocery store within walking distance should be considered a human right :)

~~~
burfog
In normal American suburban traffic, 5 miles is only 7 minutes. A typical
person can walk only 1900 feet in that time.

Getting that for everybody would pretty much require paving America with
supermarkets. Consider the sizes of some supermarkets near me, roughly
estimated in feet: 250x200, 250x250, 250x300. All of these have lots that are
nearly 1000x1000, though shared with other stores.

So for walking to be equally fast, ignoring the need to carry groceries, we'd
need 50% of the land to be supermarkets.

The benefit of the normal supermarket gets even bigger if there are people in
the household who can't reasonably walk to a store on their own. Kids need to
be watched. Elderly and obese people have trouble carrying groceries for 1900
feet. Shopping would mean taking trips all day long, one for each bag of
groceries, so 1900 feet is really way too far. Cut that down to compensate
though, and then there physically isn't enough room for all the required
supermarkets!

~~~
batiudrami
7 minutes is disingenuous when you consider the time spent getting into your
car at one end, finding a park at the other, walking between the car park and
the shop, navigating the (large) shop and waiting at a checkout. All these
things are simpler and quicker if you can pop out, walk a few blocks to a
(much smaller) corner store and grab the things you need.

For me walking a 2.5km round trip to my nearest local store vs driving the 8km
return to my supermarket both take about half an hour if I'm grabbing a couple
of things.

In terms of space - no one is suggesting these grocery stores should be the
same size as a supermarket - if they are less centralised they need to hold
less stock and can be smaller. If you can walk there, you don't need enormous
car parks.

It may not be as ~efficient~ but it sure makes for a nicer existence.

~~~
burfog
I used the 5-mile example, but usually it is less. Parking is plentiful right
at the door of the supermarket; there is no need to find it.

I've never seen a good answer for how walking is supposed to work for the
less-able-bodied. My knee isn't getting better with age.

It's odd to even think of a grocery store that isn't a supermarket. I guess
that would be like a Wawa, 7-11, Circle-K, or Walgreens. Those exist in
suburbia, but they are nothing like what I expect for normal food shopping.

I can count on being able to buy artichokes, fresh and frozen whole turkey,
fresh and dried apricots, asparagus, Bartlett pears, frozen rabbit, fresh
cilantro, fresh and dried figs, bean sprouts, and alfalfa sprouts. I can
almost count on quinces, dragonfruit (pitaya), and fresh beef heart. Other
people can count on what they like, somehow choosing Muenster and rice cakes
and tofu.

~~~
batiudrami
My examples were less than 5 miles, too. 2.5mi each way to drive vs 0.8mi each
way to walk.

I like having both options - I stop at the supermarket on my way home from
work for a bigger shop. But when I just need one thing it's great to be able
to walk and get it.

Plentiful parking is available at my supermarket door too - but it's a
different experience. The need to navigate other cars, the busy intersections
which inevitably exist around shopping centres, the larger store with more
people - it all creates a larger and more frustrating/stressful experience
than a quick walk in the sunshine when I only need a couple of things.

None of those products seem extraordinary for a small grocery store to stock
they all sound like staples of any shop - especially the fresh food. If they
don't exist in your local stores then that is of course an issue - but it is
an issue by design where you live.

I imagine part of the cost if that to achieve the kind of stock levels I have
you need a certain population density (I live on the urban/suburban fringe of
my city) - and if you live in the suburbs with everyone on a 600m2 block then
of course it will be difficult to maintain fresh stock and a large enough
customer base. But this article is talking about making cities walkable areas
so it doesn't really apply to suburbs anyway.

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megaman8
It's sad but some people are so immensely lazy, they'd rather circle the block
in an SUV 10 times than walk 5 steps. So, when such people are asked to
produce regulations: the results are predictable.

~~~
agumonkey
Not sure the regulators are part of the group you describe. That sounds more
like teenagers.

~~~
Retra
Plenty of adults do it too. I'm reminded of this every time I go shopping with
someone who objects that I did not find a closer parking space. And I have to
point out that it would take more time and fuel to go to the closer space than
it would be to walk from where I parked to that space.

These are just people who don't walk enough outside to know how long it takes
to walk places. They're trying to maximize efficiency in a rather horrible
way.

~~~
agumonkey
Oh that is a whole another issue. Which is nonetheless true.

------
sonnyblarney
We shouldn't forget aesthetic and culture.

Those things 'don't compute' into our secular views of productivity and
equations ... but they are essential.

All the little mouldings, trimmings, foliage, gardens, window sills, the
brick, the cobblestone, the dishes, the wine.

And I would add 'local people'. Expats and immigrants are good folk, but when
everyone is a transplant, there's no rooted culture, and there's something
missing. Nobody can agree on what should be what, and you end up with bland
everything. Take for example many European cities have strong limits on
building height etc. because to the locals, it's imperative, but in the new
world, it's generally the opposite. The land in Stockholm is worth a lot,
economically, it would make sense to just bulldoze everything and put up
skyscrapers. Thank goodness that won't happen.

~~~
pavon
In my experience places in the US that have strict aesthetic zoning rules end
up with bland cookie-cutter buildings that look like a disneyfied facsimile of
the aesthetic they are are trying to enforce. I don't know if the problem is
in the details of their regulations or if the entire idea fundamentally
failed, but I'll take unregulated variety over forced aesthetics anyday.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"but I'll take unregulated variety over forced aesthetics anyday"

I doubt it really.

The 'enforced aesthetic' in North American regions generally are very poorly
conceived in the first place and are usually utilitarian, not actually
aesthetic.

Typically 'forced aesthetic' only happens in places wherein there is a strong
and obvious history in the area.

Vienna, Stockholm, Zurich as easy and obvious examples.

This 'forced aesthetic' is also culturally impinged, meaning that it's kind of
what people would do anyhow.

Would you seriously consider knocking down and old building in Zurich and
putting up a McMansion? I doubt it.

It might be an impossible thing to do from scratch, wherein there are no
obvious references either. A 'new development' in Switzerland could easily
have it. A suburb of Chicago ... probably not.

It would take an enormous degree of thoughtfulness and careful consideration
to do in most places in North America, but it might be possible, particularly
in places like New England. I could see a village in Maine saying 'no new
development within the township unless it meets colonial era criteria' or
something like that.

Without it, you get a deluge a true kind of blandness of hyper mediocrity. A
lack of critical mass around cultural ideals, meaning corporate developments
rule: a shopping mall on every corner.

Every city council and local government official wants to 'increase the GDP',
and a few new Wallmarts and a 'Starbucks on Every Corner of our Community'
would do just that - so it takes quite a lot of cultural momentum to keep
those things in check.

And I'm just scratching the surface: how we design our living spaces goes a
long way to defining who we are as a people as well.

------
jowiar
The one thing that this seems to miss, and for me what defines the "character"
of a neighborhood as "walkable" or not, is how much of the space between
buildings is for people vs. for cars.

So many of the photos here have skinny sidewalks for people and fat roads for
cars, and a space like that is never going to be full of people -- the
sidewalk is a place "to get from here to there", not a place to be.

Probably the best rule of thumb I've found is "Would I jaywalk here"? If an
area is people-first, you have a lot of pedestrian traffic, little car traffic
(because folks drive alternate routes), and what traffic there is travels at
low speed. For car-first areas, it's a losing game of Frogger.

~~~
CydeWeys
Totally agreed. Even in Manhattan, where pedestrians vastly outnumber
motorists, way more space is given over to driving and parking lanes than to
sidewalk lanes. There are entire areas of the city that are known for severe
sidewalk overcrowding during every single rush hour.

Many European cities do a much better job of giving space to people instead of
cars. We should do a better job of it here too.

~~~
jowiar
Yep — I’m a Manhattanite as well. It’s telling that when you intersect
pedestrian-friendly with transit accessibility you end up with a list of the
most expensive places to live in the US, even when the housing stock is mostly
shit.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
AKA, you end up with one of the most desirable living locations in the world
and people are willing to pay a fortune to live there.

------
crwalker
Current US zoning creates vast swathes of single-family-housing-only areas.
This segregation prevents a lifestyle of walking. In order to preserve the
value of single-family houses, we've chosen to destroy the livability of the
city.

------
pitaj
I'm pretty sure that having no zoning regulations in addition to allowing
business and residence in the same building would improve a lot. Who doesn't
want to live above a grocery store?

~~~
borkt
Mixed use is precisely what zoning regulations are pushing for these days. If
there were no zoning laws developers would only build whatever makes them the
most money (from what I gather this may be mini-storage in all honesty). Edit:
also elder care. I see developers do all sorts of less than honest things to
win the approval to make an elder care facility.

~~~
mikeash
I used to live in a new mixed-use development. The builders built as much of
the residential parts as the county would allow, and then basically quit. It's
been the better part of a decade now and the place still doesn't include a
single office or retail unit. A huge chunk of land just sits empty. I'm
certain that if the county stepped out and allowed the developers do what they
wanted, that land would instantly be filled with even more residential units
and that would be it. (And given the demand for housing, that may not be a bad
thing, but the result isn't mixed-use.)

~~~
borkt
That is definitely true. I work on the infrastructure/engineering side of
municipal government but I have worked on the private side in companies that
also do land planning. Developers always promise anything the city wants in
order to get approval for a tentative map, then phase the construction. Phase
1 residential goes in and gets certificate of occupancy, next day "phase 1
went way over budget, we just cant do it right now." Not all developments go
this way but a lot do. I am always very careful to structure conditions in
such a way that they at are obliged to construct all public infrastructure and
as much of the development as I possibly can prior to giving them public works
signoff.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Phase 1 residential goes in and gets certificate of occupancy, next day
"phase 1 went way over budget, we just cant do it right now." Not all
developments go this way but a lot do.

Sounds like a great reason to blacklist that developer for, say, 5 years.

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qwerty456127
I'm so glad somebody understands and discusses these problems.

~~~
qwertay
I have read a bunch of things from this website and they have some really
great ideas. They aren't even that radical, just really well thought out.

------
Findeton
We regulate everything.

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sbhn
People circle the block in there SUV 10 times, rather than walking, is because
there main stream fear media is reminding them all the time that they are at
risk of being knifed, or shot or beaten by random criminals all the time. And
if there are police patrolling the streets, they are also likely to get
harassed and questioned, or even suicided by cop. Sheesh, even security guards
have the right to kill you with a choke hold. Drive your SUV to the end of the
street, it’s safer.

~~~
nerdponx
Where in the USA do people think like this? I don't know anyone who does.

~~~
swiley
Most people I've been around think like this. So in Lynchburg and the very
western suburban part of Richmond Virginia at least they do.

Younger people who aren't in (have graduated) college seem to be a little more
reasonable.

~~~
grandmczeb
I'm not sure if you have a very strange friend group, but I've never heard
someone express a similar opinion.

~~~
swiley
I definitely do, it's not really a location thing.

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someguydave
Central planning is awesome! Everyone should be regulated to build things
which are good in my opinion!

~~~
kerbalspacepro
I feel like your sarcasm is missing the point. Nobody really believes that
regulations are all good or all bad. There are, however, more or less
effective regulations. Trying to find effective regulations like what Strong
Towns are doing, is a good thing!

~~~
someguydave
The point of my sarcasm is different: the word "effective" implies that some
goal is being achieved. Who sets the goal? Why do they have the authority to
tell people what to do on their property?

