131–140 of 322 posts
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I don't think economics have squeezed out free time -- phones squeeze out all our free time.
Having two or three jobs is not really conductive to free time.
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This sort of citizen engagement is cute, naïve and ultimately pointless. Where I live in the US the major landowner(s) and local billionaire(s) ultimately controls these things. I’m not being sarcastic.
Just 16 people voted in Glendale’s municipal election amid the pandemic https://www.denverpost.com/2020/04/21/glendale-election-coro... Glendale, Colorado is the quintessential example of this. Like 2,000 people live there due to insane gerrymandering, but there are tons of businesses and money moving around. The mayor gives crazy zoning benefits to his wife (strip club and dispensary on the main road, right next to…
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It's by design that only people with stable housing can vote? I bet you loved pre-1965 America.
Yes, voting requires some form of residency. That's a pretty basic tenant of any stable representative government. Anything less becomes extremely easy to game.
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All things being equal, SF has some of the most desirable weather on the planet, so it will always have an high cost of living due to excess demand.
it's a great place to live and there will always be high demand. there would be more supply if not for restrictive zoning laws. and more supply = lower prices
It probably isn't as simple as the writer thinks. Houston, for example, has no zoning laws and no $4 lunch bowls.
You are oversimplifying the writer's position. They mention zoning as one reason but also other regulations, health codes (minimum sink counts!) and other things like parking minimums (which houston has had, though they've been removed recently in a lot of cases), reliable and ubiquitous public transit, etc.
The key point here (and biggest advantage of Japanese cities) is that nearly every building is mixed-use by default, regardless of local density levels. This post does a great job illustrating the difference this makes: https://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.htm... For comparison, even our best-case scenarios for urbanism here in the states (like NYC) have incredibly convoluted zoning rules, which i…
The key point here (and biggest advantage of Japanese cities) is that nearly every building is mixed-use by default, regardless of local density levels. This post does a great job illustrating the difference this makes: https://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.htm... For comparison, even our best-case scenarios for urbanism here in the states (like NYC) have incredibly convoluted zoning rules, which i…
‣ Not Just Bikes: https://youtu.be/jlwQ2Y4By0U
‣ Life Where I'm from: https://youtu.be/wfm2xCKOCNk
I serve as a planning commissioner for my city, and my city just recently tried to overhaul our zoning code to allow for more affordability and better economic outcomes for our citizens and future as a city. Here is what I have learned: In the US, few people participate or care about local laws, zoning, and elections, or even understand why participation may be important. In a citizen ballot to determine if we should…
This sort of citizen engagement is cute, naïve and ultimately pointless. Where I live in the US the major landowner(s) and local billionaire(s) ultimately controls these things. I’m not being sarcastic.
The most powerful weapon the powerful have against the majority of "ordinary people" is to propagate the idea that all this local stuff is boring and ultimately decides nothing. To make people stop caring.
>Individual regulations, each reasonable in isolation... Every single one of these rules that amounts to death by a thousand cuts preventing these sorts of businesses (as well as many others) will be rabidly defended by many/most if presented in the abstract. That sort of inability to reason about the forest based on what you're doing to the trees is the root problem. And it's a social/ideological/moral one, even if…
This is why the "let's slash regulations and cut the size of the government to let business prosper" pitch seems so appealing, and yet never seems to work in practice. The problem is, these kinds of deregulatory pushes always imagine that there are a bunch of price-increasing regulations set up by unaccountable bureaucrats somewhere, and that we can tear those down while making the system simultaneously cheaper and m…
There is hope. Scott Wiener is a California politician who saw that these problems can't be resolved at the local level and got himself elected to the state legislature. He is smart about how he sets up the battles so he has had very good results incrementally improving California's zoning - and other things - by gradually restricting local zoning authority when it's abused.
We are not yet at the "convenience store at the subdivision corner" stage, but give him time.
I serve as a planning commissioner for my city, and my city just recently tried to overhaul our zoning code to allow for more affordability and better economic outcomes for our citizens and future as a city. Here is what I have learned: In the US, few people participate or care about local laws, zoning, and elections, or even understand why participation may be important. In a citizen ballot to determine if we should…
I think there is a snowball effect with zoning. I specifically sought out a place zoned with no building code checks and hardly any zoning. I value my right to die in a fire a lot more than I value my right to have the jack-boot enter my own property and tell me he knows best. People like me go to places with fairly free zoning. The jack boot lickers go to places with restricted zoning. Once one has a majority it jus…