Exclusionary zoning exists because of NIMBYism. NIMBYism exists because of the financial incentive to raise land values. That financial incentive exists because of a lack of taxation on land value.
Not sure I agree. Or doesn't fit with my experience/city/state.
All zoning is exclusionary to my knowledge. That's the entire point. It's not necessary but it exists because it exists. And, it's sticky. It was established most likely when the entire city was raw land and undeveloped; so it served as a plan for development. There was no NIMBY because people were building their BY. Because there was a plan, you could decide where you wanted to build that BY.
Once you have developed the land, raised family, lived in a house for decade(s), and the city around you develops and changes. Now, your property maybe better utilized as a multifamily complex or a nuclear reactor, or anything really. But, it's your home and you shouldn't be taxed out of it. Rezoning as a process is may difficult and probably should be. There's a lot of stakeholders/neighbors who are impacted by a change. They should have some say. It just so happens that those people who bought a single family house in a single family neighborhood tend to prefer it to stay that way so they get called NIMBY but it's a completely rational perspective to have if you were in their shoes. Thus, an introduction of this tax only serves to displace the current owners who can not afford the new tax bill and does nothing to change the actual zoning. So the result is, richer people with bigger tax-bill budgets move in and your even further into the NIMBYism trap not even realizing you're in a zoning trap.
If you open up the zoning (and perhaps the building restrictions), the best and highest uses can actually prevail.
> It was established most likely when the entire city was raw land and undeveloped; so it served as a plan for development. There was no NIMBY because people were building their BY. Because there was a plan, you could decide where you wanted to build that BY.
That's not really true. Zoning was usually set up later. Often the existing buildings wouldn't be permitted by the zoning rules but were "grandfathered in". (If we made this practice illegal and insisted that you have to demolish anything that doesn't fit the new zoning laws, that might be one way to keep zoning laws sane). Even if the final state of those people's buildings is legal, often the process by which they were built wouldn't be.
> Once you have developed the land, raised family, lived in a house for decade(s), and the city around you develops and changes. Now, your property maybe better utilized as a multifamily complex or a nuclear reactor, or anything really. But, it's your home and you shouldn't be taxed out of it. Rezoning as a process is may difficult and probably should be. There's a lot of stakeholders/neighbors who are impacted by a change. They should have some say. It just so happens that those people who bought a single family house in a single family neighborhood tend to prefer it to stay that way so they get called NIMBY but it's a completely rational perspective to have if you were in their shoes.
Guess they should've had the foresight to get born earlier? It seems absurdly unfair to say that zoning set up for a population that was half the size should bind the current generation. I get that it's individually rational to want to pull the ladder up behind you, but it's disgusting. (And for the "people shouldn't be forced out of their home" crowd: my generation gets forced out of our homes every 2-3 years because we can't afford to own and have to rent. So I won't shed any tears for boomers getting forced out of their home once in several decades)
> And for the "people shouldn't be forced out of their home" crowd: my generation gets forced out of our homes every 2-3 years because we can't afford to own and have to rent. So I won't shed any tears for boomers getting forced out of their home once in several decades
Plus, here in the US the vast majority of land ownership entailed forcing native peoples out of their homes.
>That's not really true. Zoning was usually set up later. Often the existing buildings wouldn't be permitted by the zoning rules but were "grandfathered in". (If we made this practice illegal and insisted that you have to demolish anything that doesn't fit the new zoning laws, that might be one way to keep zoning laws sane). Even if the final state of those people's buildings is legal, often the process by which they were built wouldn't be.
No disagreement there, I'm no expert but think it just wasn't as formal as we current have it. But informally it still roughly matches how we currently do it (residential areas, commercial area, industrial areas, etc). Building codes, technologies, materials, etc change much more frequently which is a bigger reason that old buildings wouldn't exist today. I happen to reside in a part of the US that has seen massive sprawl and growth in just the past ~50-70 years, so it's been mostly planned. I can currently see how the next generation of exurbs will be developed and I think it's been that way for at least 30 years.
> Guess they should've had the foresight to get born earlier? It seems absurdly unfair to say that zoning set up for a population that was half the size should bind the current generation. I get that it's individually rational to want to pull the ladder up behind you, but it's disgusting. (And for the "people shouldn't be forced out of their home" crowd: my generation gets forced out of our homes every 2-3 years because we can't afford to own and have to rent. So I won't shed any tears for boomers getting forced out of their home once in several decades)
Are we out of land in the US? (I'm assuming you're in US). Why do you need that specific piece of land that the person you are displacing already owns? Job/commute, convenience, etc are unacceptable answers in my book. Employers can and should be dispersing, you're likely broadly employable and could find work elsewhere. They could put their office elsewhere. But you're choosing to live in an area that you can't afford to own (and they're choosing to office out of a location that their employees can't live in). Ignoring those or pushing them on the current land owners makes no sense. Curious if you have any evidence that rents are not market driven? It's my opinion your generation is forcing each other's rents up by refusing to move to a more affordable location. When a boomer bought that house, decades ago, it probably wasn't as desirable of a location as it is today. I happen to believe you are more in control of the entire situation than you care to admit but would rather stay put and blame the boomers or change the rules because you don't like the cards you were dealt. The "shed no tears" thing goes both ways, but they did get there first and they do already own their house, so it's an uphill battle for you.
> I'm no expert but think it just wasn't as formal as we current have it. But informally it still roughly matches how we currently do it (residential areas, commercial area, industrial areas, etc).
There's a huge difference between a "residential area" and an area where it's literally illegal to build anything except houses and parking lots. It's not a case of just formalising what already existed, when you make the bodegas and offices and light workshops illegal you turn it from a residential neighbourhood into a soulless dormitory.
> Are we out of land in the US? (I'm assuming you're in US). Why do you need that specific piece of land that the person you are displacing already owns? Job/commute, convenience, etc are unacceptable answers in my book. Employers can and should be dispersing, you're likely broadly employable and could find work elsewhere. They could put their office elsewhere. But you're choosing to live in an area that you can't afford to own (and they're choosing to office out of a location that their employees can't live in). Ignoring those or pushing them on the current land owners makes no sense.
(I'm actually not in the US, but HN being HN I pretty much have to comment from a US perspective).
Agglomeration has huge benefits, that's why we have towns and cities in the first place. The current landowners almost certainly moved to somewhere that was previously less dense and made it more dense by moving there, no doubt chainging the character of the place in the process, so I don't think it's fair for them to complain about the next generation doing the same thing.
And if I tried to start my own new city in the middle of nowhere the exact same thing would happen: the first group of people move in, the city (maybe more like a small town to start with) becomes a pleasant place to live with jobs available, more people want to move in, but now there's enough people living there to NIMBY-block any density increase. If we tried to set a schedule at the start where we'd gradually densify the zoning? San Francisco already has a law like that on the books, they just ignore it.
> Curious if you have any evidence that rents are not market driven?
Zoning is a huge market distortion. It's essentially illegal to build anything in SF (over half the homes in San Francisco would be illegal to build today), and don't get me started on artificially low property taxes. So the rents are "market driven" in the sense of supply/demand, but that supply is being artificially choked off.
> I happen to believe you are more in control of the entire situation than you care to admit but would rather stay put and blame the boomers or change the rules because you don't like the cards you were dealt.
I mean sure, I can choose to live somewhere worse and commute for longer or take a worse job, while the boomer lounges about on my tax dime. But the fundamental injustice is very real.
> The "shed no tears" thing goes both ways, but they did get there first and they do already own their house, so it's an uphill battle for you.
They've created a de facto rotten borough by pricing everyone else out. But when democracy stops working the issues don't go away, people just find more direct ways to express them.
This is not always true. I live in a Resource Conservation zoning area that was established to protect wildlife and vegetation in our region and preserve a large watershed area that is one of the primary sources of potable drinking water for folks that live down in the valley in the suburban and metropolitan areas. I consider my family and I extremely lucky to live in the area that we do, but we are a far cry from NIMBYs.
One of the many reasons exclusionary zoning needs to die in a fire. The urban housing crisis has been allowed to grow for decades, so we're long past any single solution, but I'm increasingly convinced no combination of fixes can succeed while exclusionary zoning still exists.
Japanese-style inclusionary zoning splits the difference nicely between making sure people don't live next to loud, potentially dangerous industry and allowing lots of mixed-use, human scale developments of varying density.
There is zoning, and then also the cost of development. Here, the reason why no starter homes are being built is because the cost to develop a subdivision is so high that no one can make a profit selling inexpensive homes.
Zoning usually dictates what's allowed and is indifferent to tax rates