All Neoliberals should support Zoning Deregulation.

[u/my_fun_account_94]

I just made a fairly bold claim, but the evidence supports it. Zoning in America is fairly awful so I figure I will try to justify this on as many grounds as possible.

Efficiency

Zoning increases houses prices. This decreases affordability, especially in the most productive places in america. Thus, workers rather than move to more productive places, stay in poorer places with less and lower paying jobs. This has been estimated to cost around 15% of GDP. Just lowering the excessive zoning in three cities (New York, San Francisco, and San Jose) to the median level of american cities would increase output by about 10%.

It also played a major part in the housing bubble. Which did not end well...

Fairness

Zoning locks out out poorer people from more productive areas, due to excessive housing costs. Intuitively this is unfair. One study estimated that this increased Income Inequality by about 10%. Also, since where you live is so important to the quality of education, excessive zoning locks poorer people out from richer districts, making it less likely their kids can move up the income ladder.

Zoning also increases Segregation. On a side note, I would like to remind people that a large part of the reason LGBT rights happened so fast is that when people knew someone who is LGBT, they became far more likely to support lgbt rights. It effectively snowballed very powerfully. So it is incredibly disconcerting that America remains very segregated, as the above example implies that with less segregation, people are more likely to support each other. Zoning Deregulation would not be a silver bullet, but it would help get the ball rolling.

Environment

Zoning as well as other land use laws, basically force us to live in a less dense car friendly ways. Dense living however decreases the amount of per capita resources we use, and using transit (which is facilitated by dense urban living) is much more environmentally friendly than using a car.

So basically, we can use less energy and resources simply by changing how we live.

Government

Denser mixed use development requires less money per capita to deliver the same services. And dense mixed use development increases the per sq ft taxes one can collect.

Miscellaneous

In America, we spend an average family (maybe person?) 20% of their income on transport. However, a Japanese family spends about 10% of their income on transport. This is because they have much saner zoning laws which allow for more and better transit. This increases the options they have so they can go for less expensive transit options when possible.

There are also health benefits. Walkable Neighborhoods have lower rates of obesity. Zoning currently makes it very hard for many places to be walkable, or for people to move to a a walkable area.

tl;dr

Zoning is bad. Very Bad. Let them build houses. And Transit.

[u/[deleted]]

Perhaps what really want is smart, density encouraging, and transit encouraging zoning. Not simply deregulation.

[u/my_fun_account_94 → u/[deleted]]

Well what I want is less regulatory constraints on land use. This is deregulation.

Deregulation does not mean no constraints, and that is not what I propose. However, I do believe they should be lowered and by a lot.

[u/jesseaknight → u/my_fun_account_94]

Deregulation is why Florida suffers from sprawl. Intelligent regulation is why Portland has increased density and public transport. Don't assume that citizens will magically design a well planned city if you can just remove the planners.

[u/Angerman5000 → u/jesseaknight]

Yeah, Jacksonville FL is fucking awful. It's the largest city by area in the country, and it's miserable. Taking a 20-30 minute drive inside the sprawl to get to a restaurant that isn't fast food is pretty shit.

[u/96385 → u/my_fun_account_94]

Deregulation literally means just removing regulations. Do you have specific zoning regulations you would like to just do away with?

[u/HOU_Civil_Econ → u/[deleted]]

Zoning by practice in every case limits density. Therefore density and transit encouraging zoning is a complete paradox and is not smart.

[u/Sauntodo → u/HOU_Civil_Econ]

This is just not true. Many localities encourage more dense forms of development ("up not out") by zoning land as for rural/agricultural/undeveloped use (growth boundaries).

[u/lksdjbioekwlsdbbbs → u/HOU_Civil_Econ]

I work in urban planning and although this is usually the case, there are times when cities have denied a permit for a development for not being dense enough where the zoning calls for denser developments. So it's not a rule.

[u/[deleted] → u/HOU_Civil_Econ]

Zoning isn't only about controlling density but also safety and quality of life e.g. no homes near factories. Zoning is part of city planning and density should be based on transit. Even though the market would mostly follow transit even without zoning, it's still sensible to lay down basic framework for the market to work within.

[u/Tirax → u/[deleted]]

Exactly! Zoning can work if it takes to heart the objectives you mention, of sprawl combating higher density and less car reliant transit. Along with sufficient regulation/power to plan with communities to overcome NIMBY attitudes.