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Comment by ecshafer | Hacker News Reader

This is a relatively easy fix. Remove zoning regulation and the market should build towards denser towns. It is outright illegal to build dense right now in most of the US. There are other ares that need to be fixed that all exacerbate the issue: The NHSTA recommends large wide roads for moving vehicles faster, CAFE standards makes cars heavier and larger since trucks / suvs don't have the same regulations, FHA loans require developments are built with curvy roads and not grids. We need laws that prioritize pedestrians and bikers, force cars to be smaller through regulation and taxes.

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Is zoning regulation as a concept really the root cause, though? Houston famously has no zoning code and is fairly lax with land use generally (although it isn't completely the Wild West), and it isn't very dense. It seems like zoning could even be a key part of the solution, being a tool that could be used to mandate that new construction be more dense around mass transit hubs, for instance. There are lots of anti-density zoning regulations that should be reformed, it's true, but throwing the whole thing out seems like overkill to me.

Houston has zoning codes but by a different name. They use Deed restrictions which functionally act as zoning.

Japan has the right solution though. Japan has a national level zoning that is black list based as opposed to white list, also it only has a few categories. In the US a town says "You can only build homes here with these requirements". In Japan you can build homes anywhere, and light commercial anywhere. So only heavy commercial and industry is effectively limited. In fact their "light industrial use" zones is where something like 60% of people live.

Houston might not have something specifically called a "zoning code" but it has plenty of the sorts of regulations that lead to sprawl.

Take a look at this table of parking requirements for Houston, and keep in mind that a typical parking space takes up 320 square feet: https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/docs_pdfs/par...

Fire department accommodations also shape road size. Being able to turn an engine for instance eliminates a lot of older alley designs in new construction.

Preferences vary, but the vast majority of Americans prefer to spread out and live in single-family detached houses with some space and privacy. HN users love to complain that this is irrational or wasteful or imposes externalities on others. Those are valid points, but they don't change the choices that home buyers make.

Many people do like that. But there is a difference between "Allow people to build a single family detached home" and "make illegal anything except building a single family detached home". If you look at traditional american towns, there are a lot of walkable nice towns with nothing but detached homes, but they didn't have the same setback requirements as they do now.

How is that a solution? Downtown L.A., for example, is not "full." And if you "densify" what are now single-family neighborhoods, that single-family neighborhood will simply move to the next frontier. Then the oh-so-horrible reign of terror will continue there. How does that help?

Zoning allows people to choose what kind of neighborhood they want to live in. If I wanted density, I'd live downtown. Why should developers be allowed to just roam in and destroy the lifestyle that the people in the area selected?

> FHA loans require developments are built with curvy roads and not grids

Do you have more information on this mechanism? I can readily connect this with anything I’ve seen.

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