tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7394091530012769761.post8596081753699970236..comments2024-03-27T04:02:47.206-04:00Comments on Old Urbanist: The Zoning ParadoxCharlie Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07317335121565650040noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7394091530012769761.post-56716669347699623982011-10-22T15:37:07.677-04:002011-10-22T15:37:07.677-04:00To illustrate why, let's say that Manhattan ab...<i>To illustrate why, let's say that Manhattan abolishes its zoning and developers can go as dense as they want. If they consistently built as dense as the Equitable building, they could put all the commercial and housing space that now exists on Manhattan, plus another 50 percent of both, onto the portion of the island below Houston St. Of couse, people who owned land outside of the truly core areas, to avoid being totally irrelevant, would offer discounts and prices would spiral down everywhere, even in Manhattan below 110th Street.</i><br /><br />Andrew: It's my understanding, based on reading Robert Fogelson's "Downtown," that the scenario you describe actually did take place in the unzoned American cities of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and it happens to this day in Houston. This issue only arose once skyscrapers became possible, and the preferred remedy (assuming one believed it to be a problem), was a height limit, not zoning by use.<br />Another alternative would be an urban growth boundary.Charlie Gardnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07317335121565650040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7394091530012769761.post-71545739257662495692011-10-22T12:35:43.004-04:002011-10-22T12:35:43.004-04:00Alon has the better of this argument. Zoning is th...Alon has the better of this argument. Zoning is the only way to give land much of any value at all.<br /><br />If there were no zoning laws and you could build as much as you wanted on any piece of property, then nothing would really justify me paying any sort of a premium for land above what it could generate as farm land. If anyone tried to charge me extra, I'd just move on to the next property.<br /><br />In the days before automobiles, proximity to other built areas would have been enough to make land in highly developed areas highly valuable. But once cars and roads come into the picture, anyplace within about 20 miles of the developer's targeted area is as good as any other. A circle with a 20 mile radius contains about 1300 square miles, which means developer choices are limitless and land sellers have basically zero leverage.<br /><br />OK, ones in the very best parts of very developed places like Manhattan would have some leverage, but only a tiny number of them in the absolute prime spaces.<br /><br />To illustrate why, let's say that Manhattan abolishes its zoning and developers can go as dense as they want. If they consistently built as dense as the Equitable building, they could put all the commercial and housing space that now exists on Manhattan, plus another 50 percent of both, onto the portion of the island below Houston St. Of couse, people who owned land outside of the truly core areas, to avoid being totally irrelevant, would offer discounts and prices would spiral down everywhere, even in Manhattan below 110th Street.<br /><br />The only reason land has any value is because zoning creates artificial scarcity. Eliminate those barriers and you could put the entire population of the country in an area no larger than the northeastern quarter of New Jersey. Land, in other words, is not a scarce asset. It is a limitless one as far as human habitation needs are concerned.Andrew Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18128501258586374340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7394091530012769761.post-25843805858625649012011-09-30T10:08:47.648-04:002011-09-30T10:08:47.648-04:00Alon -- even though exclusionary zoning may be &qu...Alon -- even though exclusionary zoning may be "worth extra" to quite a few people, the amount of that extra value, whatever it is, seems to be almost insignificant next to the increase that results from significant upzoning. I think that homeowners do actually perceive this, in a way, with the constant grumbling about "greedy developers" and the fear of "affordable housing," which I take as an implicit recognition that high-density development simultaneously increases developers' profits while decreasing housing costs.Charlie Gardnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07317335121565650040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7394091530012769761.post-32275466878242967812011-09-29T02:24:06.212-04:002011-09-29T02:24:06.212-04:00You should think of it as the equivalent of OPEC. ...You should think of it as the equivalent of OPEC. By slightly restricting the supply of oil, OPEC countries can cause large increases in the cost of a barrel, earning more export income than they would if they'd sold more oil.<br /><br />The same is true of restrictive zoning (and parking minimums, and so on), with the added complication that sometimes keeping out the poor is worth extra. It makes the area more desirable to snobs and racists and thus raises property values, and also adds to the satisfaction of snobbish or racist locals in addition to the economic benefit.Alonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17267294744186811858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7394091530012769761.post-19600329806331329362011-09-26T14:54:09.486-04:002011-09-26T14:54:09.486-04:00Overall, the effect of these density and use-limit...<i>Overall, the effect of these density and use-limiting restrictions seems to be to concentrate financial benefits in the hands of incumbent homeowners, while impoverishing the city as a whole</i><br />So very true, except not much can be done about it, because they're the ones who can vote, as opposed to all the people priced out of the city, who, since they are not living in the city (and adding value to it), can't vote against the NIMBYs. I'm not sure how to get around this, if it's even possible at all.crzwdjkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06394805356595604336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7394091530012769761.post-34541576691599492842011-09-25T00:17:27.961-04:002011-09-25T00:17:27.961-04:00Vince -- that is possible, but the fact that resid...Vince -- that is possible, but the fact that residential is being built in significant quantities on the mixed-use side suggests that the key factor here is density rather than use. <br /><br />As for zoning -- the neighborhoods I've shown were actually laid out some decades before Nashville adopted a zoning code. Industry "moving in next door" was simply not a realistic possibility for many reasons. The factories of the day needed large land areas convenient to rail transport. Even if they could have outbid the residential buyers (not likely), assembling a sufficient number of parcels would have been almost impossible, and there still would have been no rail access. <br /><br />Without zoning, things actually worked out quite well. Industry located in land it valued highly but which was shunned by residential (along train tracks and at city fringes where land was cheap). Commercial located in space that was valuable for its purposes (first floors, for visibility and accessibility) while residential took the above floors (for privacy and security). No one was consciously trying to make things "mixed-use." The idea that chaos would ensue if zoning were abolished flourishes in the absence of critical thinking about urban economics and urban history. (I'd also add that there's no logical reason that zoning has to cover <i>everything</i>. It's not all or nothing. If there is lingering concern about industry, why not just create one area for industry and leave the rest alone? That is what Paris seems to do, based on the essay I posed a couple weeks back.)Charlie Gardnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07317335121565650040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7394091530012769761.post-22723864699702604512011-09-24T11:29:03.910-04:002011-09-24T11:29:03.910-04:00I wonder if the higher property values on the rela...I wonder if the higher property values on the relaxed zoning side of the block reflect city wide restrictions on offices and other commercial. So if you relaxed zoning in a few select areas you'll see this kind of rise in property values, but if you relaxed zoning everywhere, you'd find more of a market equilibrium.<br /><br />Then that makes you wonder: home owners are worried about commercial and industrial uses moving in next door, but would that happen if zoning restrictions were relaxed everywhere? I'd be pretty mad if the lot next door to my house were rezoned to heavy industry, but if zoning laws were relaxed *everywhere* I bet the lot next door to me would remain residential.Vincehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02777126353459877468noreply@blogger.com