Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomlagier | Hacker News Reader

Morally, I'm very pro-high density housing. Just like I'm pro-public transit. But in reality, my expressed preference is a single-family house with a yard and the convenience a car brings. I'm not sure how to square these things.

View on HN

Cars are only convenient when there's infrastructure everywhere for cars, including parking spots.

It's also the case that adding infrastructure for cars makes everything else (walking, forms of public transit other than bus) less convenient, by taking up space and making everything far apart.

That's fine if it you prefer it. The question is whether you can use the force of law to prevent other people from realizing their preference on their own property.

The problem is that some of people's preferences include externalities. I prefer that my neighbor upstream not dam or pollute the creek that runs to my yard. I prefer that my neighbor behind me not put up a 100 foot concrete wall that blocks my view of nature. But it's their property, as you say. So people band together and decide that they want to live in a community that abides by certain rules and pass zoning laws, getting us where we are today. Externalities are a thing, and surely at least some zoning makes sense.

But the answer is obvious: if the force of law can be applied over home design preferences, there is no longer such a thing as private property.Yes, there is a clear need for building regulations related to safety, but that’s an entirely different argument.

There has never been freedom to build whatever you want on your own land.

Private property doesn't mean "mine and mine alone"; it means you get to use it in a way accordingly granted by the state's monopoly of force.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com