North American vs. Japanese zoning

http://devonzuegel.com/post/north-american-vs-japanese-zoning

by oftenwrong • 8 years ago

224 310 8 years ago

jdhn• 8 years ago

The biggest change I see from the NA model is that localities don't really have the ability to make their own rules. Seems like this would require a very strong movement at the state level to ever implement something like this.

slivym2• 8 years ago

There's literally no chance of that happening in the US for fundamentally philosophical reasons. Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach.

dsfyu404ed3• 8 years ago

whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach.

Whether or not a tendency to centralize more of their planning/decision making relative to the US counts as "pragmatic" is something many people (myself included) would take issue with. I think the most local level of government capable of dealing with an issue should be the one that deals with the issue.

Spooky235• 8 years ago

That's an inaccurate characterization.

The Federal government has a minimal direct impact on civil administration in populated areas and always has. Land use, code enforcement, permitting, police and similar functions are all state responsibilities that are delegated to varying degrees to county or municipal government.

US States are also nominally sovereign. It's less philosophy and more legal.

gascan6• 8 years ago

Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries [...] take a much more pragmatic approach.

This seems disingenuous. Pushing zoning decisions down from the Fed seems a bit more like the EU pushing down zoning decisions. European countries implement their own rules, US States implement their own rules. Both are about the same size.

andrewla3• 8 years ago

The original blog [1] that much of the content was culled from goes into some more detail here.

Despite the national guidelines, cities aren't completely powerless. They can identify zones where certain rules will be waived to allow higher densities, or alternately, establish certain criteria like a minimum quantity of green spaces on each lot, minimum setbacks, etc... But the basic rules of zoning are still defined by the national government.

And in general it sounds like the types of zones is nationally mandated, but which areas are assigned which zones are a local decision, unless I'm not understanding the idea here.

[1] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

gallerdude• 8 years ago

Imagine we immediately changed to Japan’s system - do you think us Americans would do a good job utilizing it?

I think the Japanese system is better, I just fear that part of the benefit they have is cultural (harder to implement than laws).

TulliusCicero12• 8 years ago

Changing to it immediately would be impractical, but a steady transition would be pretty easily feasible, outside of the political concerns.

It's not like dense, mixed-use areas don't exist in the US -- NYC being the most obvious example. They're just uncommon because regulations force them to be uncommon. Where they do exist they work fine.

claydavisss7• 8 years ago

But voters at a town hall on live television will rightly reply that anyone who wants to live in NYC is free to go there, and anyone who feels victimized by the situation in the Bay Area is free to leave.

emodendroket12• 8 years ago

I suggest you pick up a small-town paper talking about any proposed development at all to get a sense of issues that exist beyond just whatever old zoning laws are on the books. People have lots of reasons for not wanting that to happen -- some, granted, are silly, but not all of them are.

dwater• 8 years ago

This blog post is based on posts from the Urban kchoze blog, which has been linked on HN previously. I liked it so much I read the entire archive. One great post is about a possible remedy to American zoning: dynamic zoning.

http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-make-urban-ho...

It doesn't provide a direct route to move to Japanese-style zoning, but it would allow densities to increase organically based on demand in areas, which is a major component of Japanese zoning that is missing from American zoning.

If you are interested in these topics, I recommend the entire Urban kchoze archive.

Spooky235• 8 years ago

Of course not. It's an awful idea because as a diverse, representative democracy you'll be subject to the whims of the congress.

Do you really want rural conservatives who hate cities dictating urban land use as you would today?

Do you really want democrats with tight ties to big real estate interests (key members of the California delegation, for example) dictating land use policy?

Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley because everyone fled cities in the 50s and 60s to buy the then-american dream in the old orange groves. Whatever the next phase is, it isn't going to happen there.

api• 8 years ago

This is something concrete we could push for to fix California's housing crisis. Something like this at the state level would go a long way toward making it easier to build efficiently so that supply can increase to match demand.

paulgrimes1• 8 years ago

“Category II Residential Zone: The permitted buildings include shops, offices, and hotel buildings as well as buildings with karaoke box”

tawm• 8 years ago

Are there any other examples of countries using a Japanese zoning system?

hrktb• 8 years ago

I think France has a similar system of threshold. You have residential areas, commercial areas, industrial areas and so on, with increasing permission to do whatever you want.

That often means tall residential buildings will be near commercial areas, huge residential complexes (often for social residence) near industrial area.

claydavisss7• 8 years ago

This would be a disaster in the US. This surely victimizes some in Japan also but because of cultural differences you just get more silent suffering.

Even if implemented, the new Federal Zoning Board would be obligated to honor pre-existing zoning rules. If not, the party holding power in Washington at the time would get demolished. What politician will risk telling an entire state of voters that their assumptions about their property are going to be unilaterally changed? No one, it would be political suicide.

Accurate or not, any politician proposing this would be accused of trying to socialize housing.

andrewla3• 8 years ago

What particular aspect would be a disaster in terms of victimization.

I concede the point about a "Federal Zoning Board" but I'm not sure I see the objection if a municipality were to introduce Japanese zoning.

claydavisss7• 8 years ago

Counties/municipalities are already free to zone however they wish, and homeowners and prospective homeowners are free to choose the county/municipality that has zoning laws that are agreeable.

Massive revamps of zoning laws would require voter approval or the politicians in question risk political suicide. What voters are going to approve a huge potential downgrade of their largest investment?

emn13• 8 years ago

I'd say it's the opposite: the US system is quite rigid and micromanages how society builds. Limiting the power of government to regulate only broader, more overlapping categories is quite the opposite of socialism in the US sense; it's more like liberalism.

But mostly, comparing either to a political philosophy sounds far-fetched. But hey, it's politics, so you may be right somebody will be accused of socialism, however nonsensical that is.

dsfyu404ed3• 8 years ago

US system is quite rigid and micromanages how society builds.

This varies a ton from city to city. My general perception is that the cities/towns that tend to be more likely to praise European ways of doing zoning/development are more rigid ones when it comes to zoning so it's much harder to actually do mixed development in those places because of all the boxes checked and signatures required to do it and comply with local regulation. I find this contradiction somewhat comical.

claydavisss7• 8 years ago

Replacing local rules with Federal rules would probably not be what most voters consider an upgrade in governance.

Local homeowners in most cities and towns can get one-on-one facetime with decision makers. In our town I am on a first-name basis with the mayor as are most residents. Who is going to replace this with a Federal Zoning Board?

crawshaw• 8 years ago

Comparisons between the governments of homogeneous states like Japan and sprawling unions like the USA are not particularly helpful. The nature of the problems the governments face is too different.

Instead, compare California to Japan. From this article, run the thought experiment of a California-wide zoning board.

slivym2• 8 years ago

As a Brit something that always struck me as strange was that Americans all seemed to own large, detatched houses. It just seemed odd to me, and whilst it's true that a lot of the US is less dense than the UK I find it fascinating that the zoning laws seem to massively encourage and protect single family homes.

tudelo2• 8 years ago

Do you not want a large, detached house? :) I think part of it has to do with the fact that that is what people want... When you have such a place you don't have to worry as much about how much noise you're making or if you're disturbing your neighbors.

5040• 8 years ago

Speaking for myself, I'd love a small house with no parking and without a backyard. These houses are basically impossible to find because of zoning rules.

adrianN3• 8 years ago

Modern construction is reasonably sound proof so that you don't have to worry too much about your neighbors even if there is no yard separating you.

madeofpalk• 8 years ago

I think it mostly just reflects the age and histories of our cities, and the cultures that comes from that.

rsynnott3• 8 years ago

Do you not want a large, detached house?

No, because if everyone else had them too that'd mean living in a very low-density area, likely without anything in walking distance or decent public transport.

rayiner13• 8 years ago

If people wanted it so much, counties wouldn’t have to make it illegal to build other kinds of housing through zoning laws.

Arnt• 8 years ago

Do you have in mind a large, detached house and a long commute, or just a large, detached house? The answer you get always depends on the question you ask.

Me, I'd love to have a large, centrally located, detached house at an affordable price. It's not a realistic desire though, and that lack of realism means that any policy based on it will be equally unrealistic.

dtech• 8 years ago

In the Netherland you can definitly have such a house at a reasonable price, 25km+ outside of cities.

You can also choose a smaller, non-detached house for the same prices inside a denser neighborhood. You then don't need a car and can bike or take publish transport to everything.

Most people prefer the latter.

PuffinBlue• 8 years ago

Do you not want a large, detached house?

Not in the sense that that is somehow the only way to define 'success' in living arrangements.

Personally I value community and amenities to a vastly higher degree than I do the house itself.

Totting it up so far I think I've lived in 9 different houses in 3 different countries. Some house were large and detached, some were semi-detached, one was end terrace. If the house was large enough to live in and put my things in it became essentially a utility that performed a function.

The most important thing was who lived next to or near me, what services and amenities were around and how easy access was to them and what were schools like for kids.

Perhaps that's because I didn't own them but rented them, but I do own a house that I haven't lived in yet and I feel no more attachment to it than the rest. Instead choosing the area and community over the bricks and mortar themselves.

ggg99902• 8 years ago

My ideal is a 5 bedroom house on about 1/2 acre of lawn right smack in the middle of Manhattan.

Zach_the_Lizard4• 8 years ago

Do you not want a large, detached house? :) I think part of it has to do with the fact that that is what people want

If people truly wanted this, we wouldn't need a large zoning law apparatus to legally enforce it, now would we?

Historically these laws came about due to White Flight and wanting to keep the "other" people out.

My hypothesis is these laws persist due to effectively creating legally enforced housing cartel, pushing up house prices. Throw in some rent control to turn some poor folks against new housing, and you've got a recipe for ever increasing house prices, falling fertility rates, and the squeezing of the middle class.

eeZah7Ux2• 8 years ago

Do you not want a large, detached house?

No. In most central and southern Europe there are laws to ensure that density stays above a threshold, cities stays walkable and apartments are built with proper walls and corridors to prevent any noise from the neighbors.

This led to much cheaper housing and less need for driving.

gutnor• 8 years ago

Do you not want a large, detached house? :)

The smiley implies a lot of people want that. That's true, but the flip side of that question is "Do you no want to drive for everything you need?" which, especially in Europe, is going to get a lot of people answering "Hell no".

maxxxxx3• 8 years ago

"Do you not want a large, detached house? :) I think part of it has to do with the fact that that is what people want... "

I don't want one. They also say that people want SUVs but I don't want that either. I think there is a lot of cultural conditioning in what people want.

ferongr• 8 years ago

I live in a hole of an apartment in a European city and contrary to most Hackernews I'd love a detached house with a hobby shed to house some metalworking equipment and a driveway were I could wrench on my motorcycle. Also, there's no "sense of community" that comes from condensed living quarters in my urban hellscape, it's a dog-eat-dog world of depressed people.

ryandrake• 8 years ago

Sometimes I think I’m the only person on HN who strongly prefers a detached, single family house with plenty of space between neighbors. I’ve done apartment living and condo living and will never voluntarily return to it. Some benefits of owning a single family detached home:

1. I have a small kid with a lot of running energy who plays in the yard every day. Having to walk to the nearest park (if one exists) is inconvenient especially if it’s miles away.

2. I’m done with loud neighbors. Constant parties, loud bass music rattling the shared walls, loud sex at all hours, loud conversations right outside my door. It was a constant attribute of dense urban living.

3. Hobbies that require lots of private space and machinery, like sheet metal working and carpentry. Not going to be possible in a townhome without being yourself the annoying loud neighbor.

4. Freedom to customize. If I want to mount a huge antenna on my roof or build a backyard shed, only a detached home allows this.

5. Related to 4: Authority to fix things when they break. If my roof is leaking I can choose if and when to fix it. I can shop around for contractors to make sure I’m not overpaying. I can inspect and approve the work. In an apartment or condo these important tasks are out of my hands and done (always poorly) by an incompetent committee or landlord.

6. (For car owners) Indoor car parking and protection from the elements measurably reduces the maintenance cost of those cars. And fixing cars is tons easier in a garage. Nothing worse than replacing your power steering system in a 2 by 4 meter parking space surrounded by your neighbors’ cars. Ask me how I know.

swebs• 8 years ago

Americans all seemed to own large, detatched houses

That's only really true for the suburbs and rural areas. Most Americans live in cities, where rowhomes and apartment complexes are more popular.

wilsonnb2• 8 years ago

I'd like to see a source for your claim that most Americans live in cities. As far as I know, the census does not differentiate between suburban and urban areas so we don't have any "official" numbers on how many Americans live in suburban areas. They are just lumped into the urban population.

Symmetry2• 8 years ago

Partially this is social engineering. Progressives at the time zoning became popular thought that if you isolated people with their families and made it less convenient to get to, e.g., taverns then they would become more responsible. This was considered particularly important when the people affected were Irish, Italians, Poles, etc who were considered in need of becoming more responsible at the time.

emodendroket12• 8 years ago

I don't think that's quite right. Such groups wouldn't be able to afford detached homes, which in many cases was the point (Atlanta, on an infamous example, also is deliberately designed to make it impossible for buses to get to done neighborhoods).

aphextron• 8 years ago

. It just seemed odd to me, and whilst it's true that a lot of the US is less dense than the UK I find it fascinating that the zoning laws seem to massively encourage and protect single family homes.

You have to understand that in the US houses are not just houses. They are the primary vehicle by which the middle class is able to build wealth. There are scores of tax regulation and perks to home owning that don't exist for any other asset class.

PopsiclePete• 8 years ago

As a European living in a large-ish American city, it's very entertaining to me to listen endlessly to Americans complain how "bad traffic has become lately with all these people moving in!"

They want:

1. Large, sparsely populated suburbs, away from everything. 2. Cars to drive long-distances from their suburbs to "the things we want to actually go to when not sleeping". 3. No heavy traffic, please!

Good luck achieving all 3!

And yeah, public transport sucks here. For obvious reasons - nobody can design effective public transport when the average commute from someone's house to their work is fifteen miles one-way and there's no population density to speak of to make it cost-effective.

I consider myself lucky that I can just walk to a nice grocery store and don't have to get in a car to go buy some milk.

sgt4• 8 years ago

"greatly limits density" "strangles redevelopment" "keeps neighborhoods in formaldehyde"

This article sounds somewhat socialist and left leaning and assumes that such a "Japanese system" is what most families actually want.

If you have a house in a typical middle class neighborhood, practically speaking you don't want neighborhood to densify too much. With higher density comes a lot more people living in the same street as you, and with that comes noise, more traffic and less personal space which can have negative psychological impacts on some people.

It also comes back to the arguments for an against planning and development of cities; just because there is an open area available, should we really develop everything? I realize that we live in a world with a booming population, but it doesn't mean that we should aim to fill every square meter on this planet with people.

Edited open space->personal space. Sorry guys.

adrianN3• 8 years ago

Density doesn't mean that there are no open spaces left. On the contrary. If you build denser you have more room to spare. I'd much rather have a couple of large parks and urban forests like for example here in Berlin instead of a few hundred square meters of yards and garages around each house that nobody but the owners can use.

sgt4• 8 years ago

You are basically saying that people should be couped up in tiny little shoeboxes, so that parks can be larger. I don't mind bigger parks, but it's very nice to have a big yard and a garage too. With a city like approach in the suburbs, you will have less personal space. I am not talking extreme here - regular American properties in most middle class areas work just fine in my opinion, and they are usually not overly large.

ddxv• 8 years ago

How is arguing against zoning regulation socialist?

yunesj• 8 years ago

This article sounds somewhat socialist and left leaning

The only hint of anything socialist in this report is that Japanese zoning is based on centrally planned guidelines. However, the author reports a key downside of this: that there are fewer possibilities for experimentation- so I don't get that this is left-leaning.

just because there is an open area available, should we really develop everything

The author makes the point that whitelist-based zoning results in urban sprawl. So, IMO, if you are going to develop an area, make it dense, convenient, and creative. And then you can leave the rest undeveloped. I don't know about the zoning laws in Seattle, but it's pretty dense with residential towers, pretty mixed use downtown and in Capitol Hill, but hikes and waterfalls are like a 20 minute drive away.

eeZah7Ux2• 8 years ago

you don't want neighborhood to densify too much
it doesn't mean that we should aim to fill every square meter on this planet with people

Quite a contradiction.

The higher the density the less space is needed, obviously.

sgt4• 8 years ago

I get what you are saying and my wording was probably not great, but what I meant is that when you have a dense neighborhood, you get less space for you and your family in terms of private property.

francisofascii3• 8 years ago

High Density actually results in MORE open space.

Low Density: | ---- House ---- | ---- House ---- | ---- House ---- | ---- House ---- | ---- House ---- |

High Density:| House | House | House | House | House | ----- Park ----- | ----- Open Space ---->

sgt4• 8 years ago

I understand that and I see now that I wrote "open space", my bad! I meant space in general. Space for a yard, space for a garage, a shed in your garden etc.

moate• 8 years ago

Where do the people go? You don't want to sprawl (build on every square meter on the planet) and you don't want to build dense housing, so what is the 3rd way?

Just "sorry, you didn't get in line for a house fast enough, just go be homeless now?"

Businesses need to employ people. The people employed by these businesses need to live somewhere close enough to the job that they can work there. Because of this, you need to build more houses near the jobs, or move the jobs (which creates its own set of social problems).

The problem is that there will always be a conflict between the people who already live in an area and want their homes to increase/maintain value, and people who need homes available to them which will devalue the homes due to there now being less demand. The needs of both groups need to be met as best as possible without steamrolling the other, but everyone needs to be willing to compromise.

scarejunba2• 8 years ago

Funnily, I find zoning regulations socialist. Just open it up and let the market take care of it. Enough with the nanny state.

21• 8 years ago

For the land of the free, some US rules are a shock to me.

Like how in many places you are not allowed to have a brown lawn, or one with taller weeds instead of grass.

Grass or weeds taller than 8 inches is in violation of Minneapolis ordinance. If grass or weeds are taller than 8", an inspector may issue an order to the property owner giving them at least 3 days to cut it. If the violation is not corrected, inspectors may authorize a contractor to cut the grass and assess the costs and administrative fees to the owner.

nickonline• 8 years ago

8 inches of weeds is a pretty solid amount of weeds

joshuacc• 8 years ago

Where I grew up (rural Southern US) weeds could shoot up to 8 inches within 3 days with the right mix of sun, rain, and warm weather.

Spivak5• 8 years ago

The rules are a bit crazy but they're not born out of malice -- they basically exist to control negative externalities and protect the property values of the neighborhood.

It's a very real fear that one of your neighbors will drive people away from your neighborhood, tank property values, and suddenly you have 20 families underwater on their mortgage. These rules are kinda dumb and often go way far because HoA members get a little drunk with power but they're essential for mobility in suburbia.

humanrebar• 8 years ago

Family homes should have stopped being investment vehicles a long time ago.

If we want affordable housing, housing costs must necessarily fall behind inflation, which is the thing brown lawn regulations are trying to prevent.

I'm not saying brown lawns are the way to lower housing prices, but the whole point rests on the value judgement that expensive housing is better.

Shivetya• 8 years ago

they may not be out of malice but you get little power tripping potentates enough to make us question the rules and how they are applied. While many bemoan HOA rules you can just have problems with cities that just increase revenues by fines [1]. For the most part I think just as many states have limits on how much of a budget in a city/county can come from traffic violations that such limits needs to be applied to all fines. these fines tend to hit the poorest the hardest and there is no remedy for them

plus much of zoning still serves to discriminate against "undesirables" but now is masked behind feel good terms related to environment, pollution, quality of life, and historical. politicians and groups simply got the same results but learned how to dodge the courts and sway public opinion

[1] https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/24/georgia-town-brags-about-...

ghaff5• 8 years ago

These rules are kinda dumb and often go way far because HoA members get a little drunk with power

I'm sure that's often true. And I know that I mostly give nature relatively free rein on my country property. That said, I can at least appreciate the point of view of why suburban neighbors on fairly small land plots who keep meticulously neat lawns, gardens, and homes are going to have an issue with the person whose house has peeling paint, an unmaintained lawn, and generally looks abandoned.

rayiner13• 8 years ago

Many of the rules were in fact created out of racial animosity, as a way to deal with the fact that explicit discrimination in housing was made illegal. (You can tell this is true because Euclidian zoning arose long after industrialization. The common law of nuisance handled the "metal smelter next to the elementary school" negative externality situation just fine. What it didn't handle was keeping black people out of white neighborhoods.) That they may now have vitality beyond their initial racist origins is a different assertion.

logfromblammo4• 8 years ago

Property values derive mostly from:

  1. Location
  2. Location
  3. Location
  4. Fads and marketing

When I shop for a home, counting the dandelions and measuring the grass height on the neighbors' lawns is the least of my concerns. These rules are 1% to do with protecting property values, and 99% to do with control freaks enforcing their prejudices and their version of order on other people.

They are not born of malice; they are born of fear.

The rules of the nearest HOA explicitly ban vehicles on blocks in the front yard. As though anybody around here would actually do that.

They go to the neighborhood with the worst property values, and they note, cargo-cult style, all of its salient features. Then they write up their rules, banning all of those features in their neighborhood. In this manner, they reason, their neighborhood will never have the worst property values in town. In reality, their neighborhood will never have the lowest property values in town because the commute to the major employers is twenty minutes, there are four grocery stores and two pharmacies within a ten minute drive, and all the houses are single-family with at least 2 bedrooms and 1500 ft^2 of finished floor area.

HOAs would mandate granite countertops and stainless steel appliances if they could come up with a decent rationale for it.

noelwelsh• 8 years ago

Our grass is quite a bit taller than 8". It's been uncut since spring as we're trying to get a bit of an ecology going instead of the usual ecological desert that is the modern lawn. Good thing we don't live in Minneapolis. (We have planted native meadow flowers as well, though they haven't fared so well.)

Also, it hasn't rained for weeks in our part of the UK. Our lawn is very brown, as are most of our neighbours'.

Apylon777• 8 years ago

Minneapolis does have an exemption to the 8" height for "managed natural landscapes".

CalRobert• 8 years ago

Thanks for doing that. The UK (and Ireland for that matter) have turned in to little more than sponges soaked in pesticides and covered in monoculture agriculture or the odd green field to please the tourists. There's a lack of understanding that almost nothing "natural" remains.

Relevant: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/29/natura...

"... farmers have sent me images of verdant monocultures of perennial ryegrass, with the message: “Look at this and try telling me we don’t look after nature.” It’s green, but it’s about as ecologically rich as an airport runway..."

logfromblammo4• 8 years ago

I think if I lived in Minneapolis, I'd rip out all the grass and put in white clover. The neighbors can then poise their hands over their snitch-phones, waiting in vain for a plant to grow past 8".

wil4212• 8 years ago

This has nothing to do with zoning in most cases and has to do with neighborhood HOA or municipal rules.

Why shouldn’t a city be able set a specific image based on what their voters want? Same things happens in Europe, I doubt Rome would allow some massive modern looking building right next to the Colosseum.

If you have a problem move to the country (rural area). Shoot guns, grow your lawn, live in a trailer or don’t, no one cares.

sweettea• 8 years ago

Unfortunately, the IBC specifies a maximum height of grass, and while I live in the country my county enforces grass height. The country is not a panacea for freedom.

njoro• 8 years ago

For the land of the free, some US rules are a shock to me.

The emphasis on freedom in the US, like many things around the world (like religion), is mostly a result of the conditions then the other way around. What would you do if you find yourself in a disorganized country of inequality and insecurity? You build the most available home construction of the most available material on the most available land. So if the economy crashes, you get sick with poor coverage or the government goes haywire you can still, in theory, live a decent life. It doesn't have that much to do with "everyone do whatever they want".

criley2• 8 years ago

For the land of the free, some US rules are a shock to me.

A few things.

1. We are the Land of Liberty, and liberty is described by our founders as "Freedom from onerous government intrusion", not anarchy. People get hung-up on 'freedom' and don't understand that Liberty is the core American value, which is called "freedom" but which is really Liberty.

2. US Freedom is misinterpreted to mean individual freedom at all costs. US Freedom is not just individual freedom, it's local rule and local soverignity. People often don't realize that the US has a dual-sovereign system where States and the Federal government share soverignity. This is a critical factor in "freedom".

Going further, counties, towns and local governments have a lot more freedom to rule as they please than you might think. You'd think, it should all be top down federal law to ensure equity, but in reality, every county is it's own fiefdom, especially in more lax states, as it is states that reign in local governments, not the feds.

So, when you consider American liberty to mean respecting individual, local, state and federal authority, and not just individual total freedom, you can see a system designed to put lots of power in the hands of local governments, which actually creates localized zones of not-so-freedom!

After all, the US is free enough where counties and cities can enforce a lot of silly things!

tetrep• 8 years ago

US Freedom is misinterpreted to mean individual freedom at all costs. US Freedom is not just individual freedom, it's local rule and local soverignity.

Not even that local. With the few exceptions from the Constitution, U.S. states wield supreme power and can override any actual local attempt at governing.

Freedom is freedom for the States, not the people.

dionidium10• 8 years ago

People often don't realize that the US has a dual-sovereign system where States and the Federal government share soverignity. This is a critical factor in "freedom".

Every complaint about the Electoral College is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of this aspect of our system of government.

Living in NYC now after 30+ years in Missouri, I'm more convinced than ever that this is a critically important check on mob rule and that the implementation of a nationwide popular vote would be a disaster for our democracy.

sandworm101• 8 years ago

> For the land of the free, some US rules are a shock to me.

US-style freedom isn't only the individual freedom of action that people commonly believe. US freedom is also about allowing people to organize communities however they want. The US is the land where people can form neighborhoods of like-minded people and enforce their own local rules. Strata boards, neighborhood zoning, water control boards, "home rule"... it is all about little collectives organizing themselves in different ways. The individual's freedom is the right to move amongst these collectives. Don't like the neighborhood? Move.

nicky0• 8 years ago

Very interesting. I quite like the UK form of freedom where I can grow my grass as long as I like.

jandrese• 8 years ago

I doubt that ordinance is enforced very heavily, but it does have a legitimate purpose. When you have tall grass rodents will move into the neighborhood and then chew their way into the nearby houses. They can cause considerable damage to nearby homes.

dragonwriter4• 8 years ago

Like how in many places you are not allowed to have a brown lawn, or one with taller weeds instead of grass.

That's a fire protection rule. Both tall and dry grass/weeds are fire hazards and dangers to surrounding properties.

csomar2• 8 years ago

Like how in many places you are not allowed to have a brown lawn, or one with taller weeds instead of grass.

Living in a place where there is no control, I'd say the US is right on this. If these laws are not enforced, the place will look like a 3rd world dump in a few years.

pluma• 8 years ago

As a European I guess this explains why Sim City's zoning never made much sense to me.

dghughes• 8 years ago

As interesting as the article is why is it titled North America vs Japan? Not USA vs Japan or North America vs Asia? There are 23 countries and almost two dozen dependencies in North America.

vorpalhex• 8 years ago

So the linked article doesn't directly cite any work but does provide highlighted notes for an article, which I followed... which also doesn't actually cite anything. So I went down a rabbit hole of researching early zoning laws to evaluate a very specific claim: that the origin of zoning laws is racist.

In 1917 Buchanan v Warley mades directly racist zoning illegal... which affected a single city in Kentucky and otherwise had very little effect. In addition, the very first zoning laws didn't get passed until 1910 in the US and zoning didn't exist much until the 1920s [1] so that seems to undermine that claim as an emotional, not a factual one.

Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [3] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options.

[1] https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/02-03.pdf

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/08/31/high-rise...

[2] http://marketurbanism.com/2017/11/01/does-density-raise-hous...

graeme2• 8 years ago

Your second link doesn't appear to support your point. It says lower density increased housing costs.

AnthonyMouse5• 8 years ago

Everyone seems to suggest that the fix for high housing prices is to simply build more densely (more supply, same demand, therefore prices should go down right?). Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [2] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options.

The issue is that density attracts people when it's scarce, because people like it. You can walk to shops etc. So if you build a little bit of density, people want to live there and the price goes up.

What you need is to build a lot of density, so that the supply satisfies the whole demand and it actually gets the price down.

pitaj4• 8 years ago

Zoning laws were created by progressives for racist reasons

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-oe-vallianato...

https://reason.com/archives/2014/04/02/zonings-racist-roots-...

Federal policies were also motivated by racism

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-rac...

and the federal housing project program created ghettos under the guise of providing adorable housing for the poor. They just wanted to concentrate the poor (read "black people") in certain areas.

monocasa6• 8 years ago

It's not really fair to blame this kind of stuff on progressives.

For instance, that Reason article calls "Barry Mahool" (actually J. Barry Mahool), a progressive and doesn't really elaborate beyond that, letting the reader assume that his progressivness extending to racial thought at the time. Looking into it, he seems to be thought of a progressive because of his out spoken support for women's suffrage, but as for black people he created the zoning laws as "Blacks should be quarantined in isolated slums in order to reduce the incidents of civil disturbance, to prevent the spread of communicable disease into the nearby White neighborhoods, and to protect property values among the White majority".

That's like calling Dick Cheney a progressive because of his out spoken support for gay marriage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Barry_Mahool

https://www.asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-readings/silver%20-...

rory096• 8 years ago

Yet that appears to not be the case either - as buildings get taller and more dense, costs seem to increase outside the direct supply/demand system [3] and those units which are built are typically more expensive then low density options.

This is a correlation/causation error. Prices rise beyond marginal cost of constructing an additional unit in the presence of supply restrictions and increasing demand. Those conditions are often true in areas with high rise buildings (and the second is rarely true in areas without).

Separately, the marginal cost of construction is higher for a unit in a high rise than a unit in a single-story building.

morley• 8 years ago

I find these types of articles invigorating and demoralizing at the same time. I think the reason why, and something I've thought about a lot lately, is: what would it actually take to do something like this? It'd probably involve a series of steps like this to do _exactly_ this:

* Decide to run for office

* Raise an enormous amount of money, somehow without indebting yourself to private interests

* Convince a large amount of people to vote you into office

* Bring to bear an enormous amount of political capital to convince other people to enact these changes

That involves no small amount of luck and personal charisma. I probably have none of these things, so that leaves me out.

There are other methods that are potentially easier (the one that comes to mind is effectively paying off an incumbent politician), but I'd roughly guess that there's only a 40-60% chance to get the outcome you want. Even easier actions, like calling your representatives, I'd peg at 2-5% expected value. Voting is <0.1%.

Are these really our only options? Am I thinking about this problem wrong? Is this just the great struggle of human governance we've been trying to solve for millenia?

rch• 8 years ago

There are workshops to prepare you for running for office, and it doesn't have to be all consuming.

I'd like to see more support for credentialed STEM professionals who are willing to take time out of a career to hold public office, but there are at least a couple of options out there already.

Edit: Actually, working with a think tank like Rocky Mountain Institute might be even more in line with your thinking. Let me know if you're curious and I'd be happy to make some introductions.

rayiner13• 8 years ago

Quiet resignation is always an option! (I get so jealous when I go to Tokyo or Munich and see that they have a functioning society. But I'm resigned to the fact that I live in a country where the trains don't run on time, and people are just okay with it. As an immigrant to the U.S. to begin with, I can hardly complain.)

NegativeLatency• 8 years ago

I fully support your right to complain.

clairity2• 8 years ago

even as a natural-born citizen, the fact that we accept crappy public transportation really chaps my hide. how do we (re-)instill pride in such things?

raldi2• 8 years ago

If a majority of the populace supports your position, you'll have a much easier (though by no means easy) time doing the above.

If a majority doesn't, then it's a feature of democracy rather than a bug that you probably won't be able to do it.

But lets assume you've identified a real winner of a platform. You don't have to start from zero to make it happen — there will be existing candidates and organizations looking to achieve the same goals as you, and you should just join those campaigns.

For example, many American cities have YIMBY clubs. Join yours and they'll have lots of great input on how you can put your finite volunteer time to effective political use.

TheJakeSchmidt• 8 years ago

This problem is solvable, but not by a single person acting alone - we have to build a movement, and being the actual candidate in office is far from the only role. Getting sympathetic candidates elected is one of the later steps in a long process. Before that, we need lots of people working on movement building, small fights, activism, research, organizing... there's so much to be done!

I'm part of a group working on this problem in NYC. If you (or anyone else reading this) are in New York and potentially interested in helping, shoot me an email! (my HN username at gmail dot com)

stickfigure2• 8 years ago

I don't think even luck and charisma would make a difference. Humans just don't deal with change well, and "you're going to change the character of my neighborhood" is going to make a large subset of any neighborhood violently angry.

Look at the backlash over 'gentrification'. No, we like our squalor just the way it is!

What we really need to do is force every resident abroad for a year so that they can see the alternative to "life as I've always know it".

aurailious4• 8 years ago

Look at the backlash over 'gentrification'. No, we like our squalor just the way it is!

This is highly dismissive of all the actual and legitimate problems gentrification has.

jjaredsimpson• 8 years ago

A real problem is that public service is underpaid. I live in a state with a part time legislature that is paid $27k/year. I'm never going to run for office and derail my life by earning next to nothing and being co-mingled into a system I find full of corrupt and detestable people.

America has a perverse relationship with politics, politicians, and governance. Politicians do some of the most important work possible in our society, but by underpaying you only attract certain types of people. Either those just hungry for power, using office as a stepping stone to wealth. Or those already wealthy looking to maintain existing structures and protect their wealth.

I don't mean to sound flippant. Our system of government is an evolved process settled on over millennia. It's really close to some local maximum.

My gripes are mostly centered around complaining that we "all know" there are obvious problems with the system but there isn't some obvious "continuous" path of from here to a better system.

If I were benevolent dictator I'd like to see something like futarchy. And even while saying that I'm not sure if it just appeals to my hyper rationalism or if it's genuinely better. I assume current legislator suffer from this same bias on all kinds of issues.

zdragnar• 8 years ago

Depends on where you are. My nearest major city council has a member that gets paid just shy of 100k a year and misses roughly a third of the meetings. Great job if you can get it.

raldi2• 8 years ago

It's true; here in San Francisco, the annual city budget is $11B, and each of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors makes $110,000 a year (which sounds like a lot until you find out that thanks to our housing shortage, HUD defines the local "low-income" threshold as $117,400).

The 11 supervisors are the equivalent of senior executives. How much do you think a senior executive of a company with $11B revenue gets paid?

As a result, we get supervisors like Aaron Peskin (who's a landlord on the side and pushes civic policy that obstructs the creation of new apartments) or Chris Daly (basically a clown).

refurb2• 8 years ago

I live in a state with a part time legislature that is paid $27k/year.

If it's part time I expect most of them have a full time job on the side?

Similar to NH. A ton of reps that don't meet all that often. Everyone has a day job.

sailfast2• 8 years ago

Because zoning is not national (thankfully!) in the United States, you should be able to do a lot at the local level.

I don't think you'll have to raise a lot of money to do this. Typically you really only need to have the desire to do it. Hardest part is probably convincing people to vote for you.

closeparen9• 8 years ago

Zoning is far too local: each municipality, acting in its own self-interest, protects its own and plans to make growth someone else’s problem. If we had zoning at a regional, state, or national level, this passing of the buck wouldn’t make sense, and those negatively affected by restrictive policy (people stuck commuting from elsewhere or simply unable to access job centers) would have some power over the decision.

blacksmith_tb2• 8 years ago

Do something like what? Move from a local to a nationally defined zoning scheme? That's not trivial for a country of any size. But moving your local zoning from exclusionary to inclusionary is theoretically possible, specifically because the consensus required is much smaller.

rcpt5• 8 years ago

Zoning is particularly tough as the people who would benefit most from improved cities often don't yet live there and can't vote. Thus, the agencies that regulate zoning are effectively captured by local residents who, for completely rational concerns about their uninsurable property values, push for lots of legislation designed to mitigate change.

I found chapters 6 and 7 of "The Captured Economy" by Lindsey and Teles to be the best exposition on this. They also detail a few ways one could change the system (eg. paying staffers more to attract better talent would make lobbyists jobs harder).

pc862• 8 years ago

These decisions are made by zoning boards. My borough's zoning board consists of:

* 3 retired people who asked or were asked to be on the zoning board * 3 vacant seats

Quorum is - you guessed it - 3.

If you live in my borough and you ask to be on the zoning board, you'll be appointed at the next council meeting. They almost never meet except when someone dies, someone new is appointed, or they need to reorganize (yearly).

Yeah there is a lot of paperwork and headache if you want to massively change the currently zoning of your area, but provided you're violating state or federal law in doing so it's not a remotely insurmountable task.

saalweachter• 8 years ago

Frankly, running for office is the worst way to effect change of this sort.

Zoning isn't really driven by politicians in most polities in the US as it is the public who firmly believe their NIMBY-ism is necessary to protect their children, property values, and way of life (although not necessarily in that order of priorities). The local planning boards and town councils are mostly responding to whatever signals they receive from their constituents.

If you want to change things, you need to change public opinion. The best case scenario of jumping to the top with some sort of majority cabal and changing things against public opinion is that you'll be voted out in the next cycle and all of your changes undone.

Instead of campaigning for public office, you should start a campaign to inform the public with concrete, incremental, individual proposals for changes to zoning and explain how those proposals will increase property values, protect children, and improve the quality of life in a way consistent with people's desires.

If you succeed, whoever is currently in office will happily put your proposals into practice as a feather in their own cap.

And if you can't convince a majority of the people in your community, well, should your desires and opinions have priority over theirs?

rayiner13• 8 years ago

Litigation has historically been an option when public opinion isn’t on your side. I dream of anti-NIMBY impact litigation, but haven’t figured out a good legal theory yet!

closeparen9• 8 years ago

Most decisions in life do not require a permit or discretionary review from one’s neighbors. The level of deference to community opinions and desires that we require of building projects is unique and probably excessive. Curtailing individual freedom to this extent should be done to protect people from real harm, not shadows.

davidw2• 8 years ago

There are a lot of YIMBY organizations and similar things popping up these days. It's a good way to get involved without doing everything yourself.

chrischen2• 8 years ago

A politician isn’t supposed to enact their own will. In theory all you need to do is convince the constituents or the people who pay the politician with a public media campaign.

brudgers• 8 years ago

In Japan's case what it took was losing World War II and subsequent military occupation. Japan's zoning is the result of mid 1940's "industry best practice" where the zoning industry was fledgling and interrupted by war and depression. It was accompanied by land reform that redistributed land wealth downward. A foreign power declared it by fiat and implemented it under martial law. One might say that Japan's stacked zoning exists because Macarthur didn't have to hold an election. The Allies held war crimes trials instead...a type of political climate historically conducive to land reform and sweeping legal changes.

Martial law is probably not the alternative you're looking for.

avar• 8 years ago

Somewhat tangential: One of the things I was most disappointed in when visiting Japan was discovering (at least in Tokyo, Kyoto etc.) that they don't really seem to have the concept of a public green space as it exists in Europe.

Instead most of these parks have fences around the grass, and you're not allowed to lie down there and hang out. Some are also "temples" and have guards that'll yell at you if you even sit down out of the way on some stairs for a second.

I live in Amsterdam, and in general I'd much prefer living in a smaller house with no yard of my own if there's a big park nearby, but in Japan I'm not so sure. If I can't use the park for anything worthwhile (lie in the sun, have a BBQ etc.) I'd rather just live in an American-style suburb with my own small yard.

cavanasm• 8 years ago

RE: the stairs, sitting on stairs anywhere is sort of bad manners in Japan (considered to be rude), but in most places it would be excused, especially for a visitor who doesn't know better; temples are a different story though. Same thing for sitting directly on the ground IIRC?

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Amys-Guide-Best-Behavior-Japan/dp/161...

T-R• 8 years ago

I'm not familiar with public green spaces in Europe, but there are definitely traditional parks all over Japan. In one place I lived, there was a sizeable park with a nice walking path through the woods just off the train into the city; it was always nice to look out the window and and see all the families hanging out there on the way into town. Where I studied abroad, there was an open park that regularly had town events, but more notably had beer vending machines, so it was always full of loud foreign college students; there was a quieter one with hills and trees where locals walked their dogs a little further away. Osaka castle park also has a lot of grassy area to just hang out; everyone goes to picnic (read: drink) there when the cherry blossoms are blooming. Parks did seem a little more sparse in Tokyo.

Edit: Here's one of those parks: https://www.hamamatsu-pippi.net/docs/2014030700074/

TorKlingberg• 8 years ago

Grass just doesn't grow as well in East Asia as it does in much of Europe and North America. Something about the climate or soil type, I'm not sure. If you want pretty grass in Japan, you have to keep people off it. I suggest looking up at the beautiful trees instead.

aplc0r• 8 years ago

Strange, I just came back from a trip to Japan and didn't really notice this. In fact I was surprised at how packed the parks were with families in tents on the grass. Maybe it is just Tokyo, since I didn't visit any parks there besides Ueno.

zumu• 8 years ago

There are plenty of parks in Japan where people hang out, lay in the grass, play instruments, practice their lines, drink socially, enjoy their lunch, walk their dogs, go for runs, etc.

I suspect what is a park and what isn't might not be easy to tell as a tourist. If you are trying to lounge in something that isn't technically a park, there's a good chance it won't be received well.

That being said, in Tokyo, most of the central public parks are packed during the weekends. Tokyo could definitely use a lot more, imho.

babesh• 8 years ago

Shinjuku Gyoemmae in Tokyo had lots of grass and people sitting on it including from what I can tell Japanese people. Hiroshima has green areas along the rivers complete with park benches. Kyoto has Arashiyama but that is on the outskirts of the city. That has beautiful walking paths and benches. What I didn't see is people sunbathing. That doesn't seem to be a thing like it is in Europe.

kettlecorn• 8 years ago

One of my fond memories I have from a trip to Japan is sitting on the grass in a park in Tokyo and sipping on green tea acquired from a nearby vending machine.

kindatrue• 8 years ago

Not mentioned: In America, owning a home is considered the most important investment you can make.

Who would've thought that mindset would lead to unaffordable housing!

Or parents telling their children that they won't be able to live near their parents because... well... investment! Like this guy: https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245

gascan6• 8 years ago

I would think owning your place of residence would be a pretty good long term investment most anyplace. It's practically a fundamental rule of the market; more expensive to rent than own long term.

refurb2• 8 years ago

It's practically a fundamental rule of the market; more expensive to rent than own long

That's not generally true. Look at the house price to rent scores. In many cities it's cheaper to rent than to own.

justin66• 8 years ago

I would think owning your place of residence would be a pretty good long term investment most anyplace.

The problem is that residential real estate values fluctuate unpredictably, and sometimes wildly, and the investment is almost always made using considerable leverage. Housing is unusual among the commonly made investments in that a person can seemingly do all the sensible things and lose all the money they've invested.

closeparen9• 8 years ago

This is mainly a psychological trick: people are more disciplined about paying a mortgage under threat of foreclosure than they are about actually investing the savings from renting. But if you do actually invest the savings, they come out pretty close. There are a lot of costs to owning a home beyond the principal payment.

knuththetruth• 8 years ago

It would be great to have improved zoning, but switching to Japanese-style zoning in the US doesn’t solve the problem of US housing being an investment vehicle for Global Capital.

In Japan, land itself keeps its (high) value, but still mostly grows/tracks with inflation. Houses themselves are seen as disposable with an approximately 30 year shelf-life.

Tiktaalik• 8 years ago

Yeah exactly. People love to compare zoning systems, but that's just a tiny slice of the picture. Among many, many other factors there is also the cultural attitude toward housing which is different from NA.

beebmam• 8 years ago

Japanese real estate has been in a rut for decades. I don't think Japan is the right country to compare the US to as a model to admire.

g8oz• 8 years ago

The discourse within the planning profession has to change before this type of innovative thinking can make any headway in N. America.

closeparen9• 8 years ago

We’re headed towards a new caste system in America: those who inherit houses / tax concessions / rent control in productive places, and those who don’t. In many ways this will be a rebalancing, as the middle-class from places on the way down gets locked out of the labor force and the poor from places on the way up find themselves with exclusive access to booming jobs markets. But I’d anticipate some serious civil unrest before the border controls around wealth centers like the Bay Area are truly solidified.

TFortunato• 8 years ago

br3aer1t

csomar2• 8 years ago

When I was a child and living my parents we had two properties: One small apartment in the city, and a big house with a sizable garden (like 50-60 trees) far in the suburb. We live 5 day of the week in the apartment and spend the weekend on the suburb.

I think it was the best setup. You get both of best world. During the week you are close to work, school, services and need absolutely no transportation. In the weekend you can barbecue.

Americans can have that luxury. I guess they just need to work harder to be able to afford two properties?

North American vs. Japanese zoning

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