Setting the criteria at the block level is an absurd strawman argument, guaranteed to yield the intended result.
A block of people better mowing their lawns and painting their houses obviousl costs something and does add a bit of value, but almost nothing is purchased at that level.
For example, the strong conservation, good services, open space preservation, etc. I cited above are all made at the town level. Town A doesn't invest in those, saves the costs, and Town B does invest and costs more, and creates more value. But because it isn't the block, he puts it on the "public" side of his ledger.
That's proof of nothing but George's willingness to paint the picture he and you want.
Plus, if you really want to create value on land, you do development. Zoning maximum density REDUCES the value of the properties. I could make enough to retire if I could take down my house and put up a condo unit. But it is 2-acre zoning, and I can't, and it was cheaper to buy.
I'm also a heluva lot less concerned once zoning density is high enough that there is effectively no ecosystem, it's just suburban hardscape, so maybe under quarter-acre zoning, it won't have much environmental effect as the flora & fauna are already pretty much gone, so development has much less impact beyond the heat island effect. But I don't know as much about the mix of buying/building/taxes/investment in those or city zones.
> Setting the criteria at the block level is an absurd strawman argument, guaranteed to yield the intended result.
It isn't a strawman because altering the argument to a 5-8 miles radius township doesn't change much of substance. The valuations are primarily determined by proximity to city center/coast as well as desirability of the broader city/country, all of which have nothing to do with the township itself. A terrible house in a terrible location in a rich country costs more than a luxurious house in a poor country because that terrible house is free riding off the armed services, medical access, among other stolen global properties. So these are public goods whose fruits are stolen by the untaxed homeowners. A small percentage of variation in the valuation is due to strictly local features such as availability of shopping centers, but again that is private investment that the homeowners themselves had no part in and have no moral right to steal. Here, they are again free riding off other people's activity. If there are indeed things that the local homeowners themselves are doing which improve local valuations, these small contributions are dwarfed in magnitude by the above-mentioned free riding.
> once zoning density is high enough that there is effectively no ecosystem, it's just suburban hardscape
If you care about the ecosystem, then you should want more zoning density, because suburban sprawl is what destroys ecosystems, not pockets of density which allow for maximum land to be open green space.
Yes, I'm aware of and generally sympathetic to the free-riding arguments (Elizabeth Warren is one of my State Senators who I'm happy to vote for).
Yet this "analysis" is not even close to valid or realistic; it is circular, self-proving, a tautology, not disprovable.
"Location, location, location" is indeed the standard real estate mantra, but acting as if location is created by entirely extrinsic factors, and a town (the unit which creates zoning) has little or nothing to do with creating value, is preposterous.
There are plenty of towns that have highly comparable locations (same commute distances to metro areas, shopping, etc.), yet vastly different desirability and valuations. And of course, they live under the same state and country-level services. The difference is the approach to managing the town.
In that regard, zoning is not unidirectional. In the town I live, zoning is 2-acre minimum, and there area active programs to maintain and purchase open space to preserve. Yet tax rates are higher and values are lower than a neighboring town that has smaller zoning and more development. As I said, I could retire if I could re-develop my land and replace my house with a 6-unit condo. But instead, I need to spend $thousands just for permission to move the front walk stairs, and I can also watch ducks and geese use the wetlands that take up half my yard in their spring and fall migrations.
It is creating different values, and it does cost real money.
And the argument that zoning laws exist only to free-ride value is nonsense. I've lived in a town that had zoning in place, then repealed zoning when developers convinced the old-time farmers to vote with"your grandfather never needed to get a permit to build a barn, why should you?"-type arguments. Then a few years later, the town saw what developers and "entrepreneurs" were doing, and reinstated zoning after the bad behavior. And this was after "private investment" created more units that reduced individual tax burdens by spreading it over more housing units. Also, this was 150km from any coast or major city, so zero commuting going on, etc.
The country argument is pretty much the same as the town argument. Some countries invest more, and are more desirable. Yet, that does not give me the right to go live there just because I want to. And the simple fact is, that if everyone did do that, it would literally destroy what they came for, like a horde of locusts. The only way to preserve it is to preserve it.
>>If you care about the ecosystem, then you should want more zoning density, because suburban sprawl is what destroys ecosystems, not pockets of density which allow for maximum land to be open green space.
Yes, agree. I've also lived in apartments in small towns and walk-up railroad flat in Manhattan. As far as I'm concerned, once you no longer have a yard that's yours, it doesn't matter much if it's a 6-unit building or a square kilometer 500m tall city-in-a-box. So, generally, I agree that it would be best to have very-high-density cities, and very low density exurbs.
The problem is that everything is done incrementally. The push is inexorably to higher-density zoning, and further out from the city centers. The result is simply more destructive sprawl.
So, how do we get planning and funding enabling entire square kilometers of city space to be razed and rebuilt as even higher-density urban superstructures?
Setting the criteria at the block level is an absurd strawman argument, guaranteed to yield the intended result.
A block of people better mowing their lawns and painting their houses obviousl costs something and does add a bit of value, but almost nothing is purchased at that level.
For example, the strong conservation, good services, open space preservation, etc. I cited above are all made at the town level. Town A doesn't invest in those, saves the costs, and Town B does invest and costs more, and creates more value. But because it isn't the block, he puts it on the "public" side of his ledger.
That's proof of nothing but George's willingness to paint the picture he and you want.
Plus, if you really want to create value on land, you do development. Zoning maximum density REDUCES the value of the properties. I could make enough to retire if I could take down my house and put up a condo unit. But it is 2-acre zoning, and I can't, and it was cheaper to buy.
I'm also a heluva lot less concerned once zoning density is high enough that there is effectively no ecosystem, it's just suburban hardscape, so maybe under quarter-acre zoning, it won't have much environmental effect as the flora & fauna are already pretty much gone, so development has much less impact beyond the heat island effect. But I don't know as much about the mix of buying/building/taxes/investment in those or city zones.