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Comment by sgt | Hacker News Reader

"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.

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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.

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.

Nobody's talking about outlawing SFH's. You can still have a big yard if you want it. But allowing smaller forms is good for a number of reasons: supporting multi-modal transportation, environmental impact, and reducing economic segregation among them.

What's a tiny shoebox for you? Average apartment sizes in Berlin are about 90m^2 (~950 square feet). That's plenty for two people and enough for a small family.

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 ---->

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.

To be clear, you can still have those things with Japanese style zoning. You just aren't required to.

Realistically, most people don't make very much use of their yards (especially front yards), and most garages are just storage space for the mountains of stuff we accumulate. If people still want those things, sure it's fine, but why mandate them?

A small yard, garden, and one car garage is reasonable. Not sure you need both a shed and garage. I am picturing a 1920's style home. Sadly many of the newer homes built on 1/2 acre lots have these huge yards that are rarely if ever used for anything. It just gives people an extra two hours of yard work per week.

> 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.

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.

No, you can still do whatever you want with your land. Nobody's putting a gun to your head and making you buy a townhome or condo.

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.

> 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.

How is arguing against zoning regulation socialist?

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

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