Hacker News Reader

Comment by TulliusCicero | Hacker News Reader

Good. Mandatory single family home zoning should not exist, anywhere. It is exclusionary by nature; economic segregation is often the intent, and in most cases the impact.

It's one thing to accept the free market causing this sort of segregation as the collective result of individual choices, quite another to suggest that the government ought to be using regulatory power to help enforce the creation of invisibly gated communities. It's a great wrong -- in particular, the impact it has re: school districts -- that it is long past time be rectified.

That said, there is much more to be done. While going from SFH's to fourplexes or small apartment buildings is usually fine by itself, greater levels of density usually need changes to infrastructure and transit service and other parts of zoning to accommodate the increased population.

View on HN

> It is exclusionary by nature; economic segregation is often the intent, and in most cases the impact.

This seems awfully reductionist. I think often the intent is more along the lines of- "We want to live in a place where kids can walk to their friends house without an adult escort and/or play kickball in the street. We've observed that this becomes unsafe in places with high density populations, so lets prevent high density housing to maintain that lifestyle"

There are lots of poor neighborhoods that are single family housing (the entire south side of Chicago comes to mind). The issues greatly impacting San Francisco should not be generalized like this- most places do not have them.

> We've observed that [leaving children unattended] becomes unsafe in places with high density populations.

Is that factually accurate, or just a false impression that people get?

Let's assume it is objectively more unsafe. Is the problem the high density or is it some other aspect that causes issues?

Most kids in East European countries, the vast majority of which grow up in high density neighborhoods, are left unattended to play in the streets, yet they are not abducted, get hit by cars etc. (Source: I grew up in Romania.)

I think the problem is imagined. The “problem” of safety has made its way out to the burbs now too. The public world is mostly safe, and kids are mostly capable of navigating it on their own and in small groups — the adults in America have chosen not to believe that, and written laws forbidding parents from allowing their children to even attempt it.

These choices may have resulted in a few less kidnappings, but they’re also core to the creation of the loneliness epidemic, as kids never learn how to engage with the world on their own.

Stranger danger isn't the only risk to children. Being hit by fast moving vehicle traffic is much higher on most people's worry list.

Well I feel much more worried about being a pedestrian in the suburbs than in a city. Drivers seem to forget people and bikes exist unless they’re constantly reminded of their presence.

Trying to get from point A to point B? Absolutely. Just hanging around near point A? Absolutely not. Point A in the suburbs invariably has a space within 2 blocks that sees two to three cars a day (excluding rush hour).

I dont think ive ever seen a fast car on a dense city street (difficult to go fast when theres gridlock) whereas speeds above 55 mph were common on the 'nice' suburban street I grew up on

The fatality rate spikes around 30mph. Most city traffic is definitely in that range (at least that I've experienced).

> speeds above 55 mph were common on the 'nice' suburban street I grew up on

Thats not a suburban street, thats a highway interconnecting the suburb. Non-driving connection within a suburb is certainly a huge problem.

I mean it was a street with on street parking, sidewalks, a school etc. I am unsure how you can make such a universal statement unless youve experienced literally every suburb in america.

In san Francisco, most city traffic is less than 30 mph because of high density

A 55mph road is a highway regardless of other factors (in my opinion).

Sucks that a school is on it

"If I redefine everything to fit my parameters, then nothing can contradict me."

I mean, okay, but if you want to avoid being intellectually disingenuous you can't do that anymore. You don't get to just randomly redefine things until they fit your arguments better.

I mean if you redefine everything to fit your preconceived notions then you shouldnt be surprised that everything matches

My take is it's not about gross safety statistics. It's about feeling safe. A lot of unsightly activity in your hood may make it feel totally unsafe even though statistically it's pretty safe.

A lot of this goes back to 80s and 90s daytime TV and its sensationalization of a small number of kidnapping cases. An example would be the Johnny Gosch case which almost single handedly ended the job of paper boy. (There is a crime podcast called Faded Out that looked deeply into this one, starting by examining the sensational claims but later finding a much more likely explanation.)

The top risk to kids outdoors is cars. Strangers don't even rank. >90% of child physical or sexual assaults are committed by someone the child knows.

I would say John Walsh as well. On the one hand, he didn't want others to go through what he went through. On the other hand, he scared the poop out of an entire generation of TV watchers.

Media really distorts risk perception. People are afraid of random child predators, terrorists, and mass shootings when none of these things even compare to car accidents, standard issue child abuse by someone the kid knows, cancer, heart disease, etc. Another example is that people are more afraid of nuclear power than coal when coal is dirtier and drives scary things like ocean acidification and climate change.

One 9/11, random kidnapping, etc. has more "virality" than a constant undercurrent of far larger risks.

>> We've observed that [leaving children unattended] becomes unsafe in places with high density populations.

> Is that factually accurate, or just a false impression that people get?

I don't feel safe as an adult living in downtown seattle due to the homeless population (this person's experience 100% matches mine [0]) and homeless people are going to naturally gravitate towards high density areas where there are more people to panhandle from.

Also, it's much riskier to commit a crime in a low density population where you can be recognized much more easily.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20422473

> Is that factually accurate, or just a false impression that people get?

I don't know, and its a good question; the answer should definitely inform regulations like these. Though, even if the fear is imagined, it will still affect your behavior and how you're able to parent. I think its also important to note that it isn't just safety at risk here- its opportunity. High density areas are unlikely to support multi-use infrastructure since the primary use will force out secondary uses (e.g. playing kickball in the street).

There are also a variety of other things you can slot into that sentence that dont invoke the sanctity of kid safety. Admittedly, a lot of them are more personal decisions that don't require regulations enforced on others.

From what I can tell, most of the people arguing that cities are safe for kids also seem to think that letting street people do whatever they want in the urban core is okay. You can cite all the stats about stranger danger that you want, but no sane parent is going to let their kids play outside in American urban cores as they currently exist. Urban cores are not human friendly places. Adults put up with it so they can live in a more stimulating environment. They are not suitable for children to wander in the same way that my kids can wander in our neighborhood in the suburbs.

It's not the density that makes urban areas unsafe, it's all the cars.

A downtown pedestrian street is perfectly safe for kids to hang out and play. Neighbors, older kids and shopkeepers keep an eye out without being in helicopter mode.

In the few cities I've been to that have banned vehicular traffic in downtown areas, you do see bunches of kids running around, as done for millennia.

I think it has nearly zero to do with cars and 100% to do with growing homelessness and grewing drug activity in homeless camps. Nobody who has become weary in Portland claims car traffic. They're all terrified by the growing homelessness and unsafe drug activity in their hood. Needles in your front yard type of thing.

Yes, vehicle traffic would be by far my #1 worry in high density areas.

With respect, you have it exactly backwards. It's the US, with its predominately low density, car-dominant building style that has vastly more traffic fatalities than higher-density Germany or Japan.

It's true that low-density SFH areas often seem more peaceful, but in practice cars there usually travel much faster than they do in higher-density neighborhoods, and it's speed that kills.

Those traffic fatalities are vastly more vehicle-vehicle collisions. I believe the EU even in the last decade legislated car design changes to address the risks of vehicle-pedestrian accidents that are far more prevalent there.

Of course they're more vehicle-vehicle in the US; hardly anyone walks in America. Just look at the stats. Even the walk-iest big city in the US, NYC, only has like 6% walk mode share.

However, controlled for number of trips/distance, being a pedestrian in the US is generally quite dangerous compared to elsewhere.

I see 28% walk share for NYC (pdf warning): http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-citywide-mo...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share

That link is only considering commutes to/from work. That traffic is very segregated in suburban communities. Notably, its also usually very far from where children hang out.

Fair, though it still indicates that Americans walk much less than Germans if for commuting Germans are using walking so much more.

I'd be interested to see a source about comparative pedestrian safety. I'd be literally shocked if small suburban streets weren't safer than almost any other option.

> I'd be literally shocked if small suburban streets weren't safer than almost any other option.

Depends on what you mean by 'small suburban streets' I guess. If you mean in small suburbs, I would find that surprising, if you mean the street itself being very narrow then yeah maybe. But relatively few American suburbs have actually narrow streets. To most Americans, "there's only barely enough room for parked cars on both sides plus 2 lanes of moving traffic to pass each other" means it's narrow.

Random reference I just saw: so far this year Seattle has had 10 traffic fatalities, 4 of them on foot vs 5 with vehicles, despite walking being far less popular than driving in Seattle (which is not nearly as walk-friendly as NYC).

Here is Scarborough, an eastern suburb (with the suburban neighbourhoods you'd expect) in the City of Toronto.

> Incidents in Scarborough have accounted for more than 46 per cent (or 19 of 41) of pedestrian deaths this year, despite the eastern borough containing just 23 per cent of the city’s population and about 26 per cent of its road kilometrage.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/12/07/toronto-appears-...

This is certainly damning.

However, it seems like all the incidents are happening on the interconnection suburban roads, not the inner neighborhood roads.

Faint praise to be sure; walking and biking as a mode of transportation should be safe and encouraged.

It's really about planning. Modern Swiss towns mostly consist of high density buildings with parking underground and most of the areas around the buildings are for walking & biking. The really good thing about high density is that it allows for much more efficient public transport which reduces the need for cars.

Just a reminder when talking about the Swiss... they are half the population of New Jersey over twice the area.

Maybe their cities planning ideas might not scale?

I'm sorry, this is hilarious to me. You see, urbanists constantly get pushback from people who know almost nothing about urban planning, or cities in other countries, who say, "uh, you can't apply lessons from Japan/UK/Germany/France/etc., because the US is so much more spread out, duh."

And now we have someone arguing literally the opposite. Now it's the US that's apparently too dense.

We need a new word for this brand of snowflakey NIH syndrome, where unless you can't prove that [city/country] is exactly the same as [other city/country], there is nothing one could learn from them.

I think you read a lot in my post that wasn't there.

But also sure... I don't know why you would be so naive to think that scaling issues don't work both ways. Perhaps what works for Switzerland and it's one city over 250k people might not work for USA with it's eighty eight over different climates, areas, densities, geological formations. No, surely I'm just being hilarious :D

Yes, but Geneva and San Jose have the same density. I think it’s worthwhi to see where scaling breaks down with constant density and also worthwhile to not a priori dismiss the idea as non-scaling.

Germany has MUCH more kids walking around by themselves than the US, even with higher population densities and a complete lack of mandatory single family home zoning. The US actually sucks big time for child independence.

If anything, these sort of car dominant neighborhoods make it more dangerous for kids to go around by themselves. Cars go much faster there.

> There are lots of poor neighborhoods that are single family housing

This entirely misses the point. The point isn't that every SFH-only neighborhood is affluent or even middle-class, it's that having all these SFH-only neighborhoods supports stratification. Such rules will block a poorer family from living in a richer area, whereas with more density-friendly zoning rules, they may choose to just live in a smaller home in a nicer neighborhood, thereby preventing severe segregation.

> This entirely misses the point. The point isn't that every SFH-only neighborhood is affluent or even middle-class, it's that having all these SFH-only neighborhoods supports stratification.

Is that the point? Is stratification what we are trying to prevent by removing single family home regulations? I don't think it will work.

Prevent? No. Alleviate? Yes.

You can't just say "I don't think it will work" without saying why. Allowing for smaller home forms would mean affordable options in desirable neighborhoods. Do you have a reason to believe poorer families would still universally avoid those options?

It seems to me that stratification of neighborhoods is extreme whether single family housing regulations are in place or not.

These types of regulations probably do make it more extreme. But I also question the base motive. Is de-stratisfying neighborhoods actually a worthwhile goal? I can certainly see some benefit- its nice to live in a diverse neighborhood. I wonder if that might happen anyways if we address the underlying issues instead- violence, schools, access to public works, probably others- rather than just throwing up our hands and giving up on these underserviced 'bad' neighborhoods.

Come to Munich. I find it very difficult to tell how rich most neighborhoods are here, whether city or suburb, whereas in the US I usually noticed easily without even thinking.

> Is de-stratisfying neighborhoods actually a worthwhile goal?

Well, that depends on how you feel about social mobility and segregation, I suppose. If you support the rich and poor being kept separate from each other, if you want to keep social mobility low, then sure it makes sense to support these regulations.

> rather than just throwing up our hands and giving up on these underserviced 'bad' neighborhoods.

Giving up? In practice, the result is evening out of neighborhood quality and desirability, not some neighborhoods just being randomly abandoned.

> Come to Munich. I find it very difficult to tell how rich most neighborhoods are here, whether city or suburb

That sounds really pleasant. I'd love to have that where I live.

> Well, that depends on how you feel about social mobility and segregation, I suppose. If you support the rich and poor being kept separate from each other, if you want to keep social mobility low

I think you're painting me into a corner here that doesn't need to exist. First, I don't see why social/economic mobility should be predicated on the non-existence of stratified neighborhoods. I think non-stratified neighborhoods are an excellent result of those things.

Second, trying to manufacture non-stratification by telling communities what type of housing they must allow feels a little hamfisted- and also a bit off target. I'd rather have government assistance housing that fits the neighborhood than a fucky landlord building shitty tenements.

Stratified neighborhoods means stratified schools, means stratified networks of connections, which means less social mobility.

> Second, trying to manufacture non-stratification by telling communities what type of housing they must allow feels a little hamfisted

I'm sorry, but this is COMICALLY absurd at this point.

Here we have communities that have used a relatively recent invention, zoning regulation, to force a historically unprecedented urban pattern of building onto the vast majority of residential land in the US, with the express intent of keeping out undesirables. As the libertarians like to put it, at the point of a gun.

And you're saying the ones who want to loosen regulations, to return to more environmentally friendly, historically common urban building patterns, patterns that would not shut out the poor, are the ones "hamfistedly manufacturing" something?

I'm sorry, I'm having trouble believing that you're not being deliberately disingenuous at this point. It's like calling the removal of Jim Crow laws "hamfisted, manufactured non-segregation".

> We've observed that this becomes unsafe in places with high density populations, so lets prevent high density housing to maintain that lifestyle

This is a generalization that finds its roots in "white flight", which was itself driven by racism and fear mongering and the side effects of redlining and mortgage discrimination. Suburbs as we know them today didn't exist a hundred years ago. And in fact, perpetuating this belief drives more folks with money/privilege/economic mobility away from cities, increasing economic hardship (and in turn, crime) in the areas they leave.

You invalidate your own point. The south side of Chicago is not a place many people would consider safe, and yet it has a huge amount of single family units. "this becomes unsafe in places with high density populations" really means "this becomes unsafe in places with lots of poor people" or "this becomes unsafe in places with lots of people who look different from me".

Can this really be tied to "white flight"? I think you make a compelling point, but white flight also happens to suburbs- which I guess is also part of your point. I don't know the reasons and history of suburb development. It seems to me that it should have a lot to do with the commoditization of fast travel costs, and its simply that rich white people were first able to take advantage.

If socioeconomic status weren't so linked to race (good lord maybe this can happen in my lifetime), would people still want single family housing neighborhoods? I think the answer is yes. They have some real advantages over living in the city or in true rural localities.

There's a difference between "moving to a single family home" and "preventing my neighborhood from becoming high density". I don't care how many people live in SFUs so long as it's not illegal to build higher density buildings.

But I think there are rational, non-racist reasons to want to prevent your neighborhood from becoming high density.

Separate response for South Chicago.

> You invalidate your own point. The south side of Chicago is not a place many people would consider safe,

I'm not sure this invalidates my point, I just chose a poor example. Switch it to Jamaica Plain in Boston and I think my point holds.

Really an appalling point of view. There is absolutely nothing wrong with single family neighborhoods; in fact, they are greatly desirable to most.

If they're indeed so greatly desirable then there wouldn't be this weird fixation with banning literally every other form of housing (something which has caused the homelessness crisis, as well as making rent pathologically high).

There's nothing wrong with single family homes.

There's a lot wrong with the government mandating them in a particular area, especially when that 'particular area' is actually 'most residential land'.

Sure, nothing wrong at all except for:

-sedentary car-dependent lifestyle

-inefficent use of arable land

-carbon intense lifestyle contributing to the collapse of ecosystems

-materialistic lifestyle enforced

-impossible to serve economically with public transit making car ownership mandatory

-energy inefficient buildings

-encourages racial and economic segregation

-anti-social lifestyle decreases face to face contact and increases barrier to connect with others

If I could vote to make these neighborhoods illegal, I would.

> anti-social lifestyle decreases face to face contact and increases barrier to connect with others

This cannot be overstated enough. My pet theory is that the suburbification of America led to our current division and political strife. You cannot expect great results when those with the most combined political power and wealth in the nation sequester themselves individually away from others and even each other. This ends up with anti-social people driving social policy for the nation. And it shows.

The older I get, watching the first generation fully raised in "suburban culture" seems to be a lesson in watching the threads of a society break down in real time. It's amazing to me that within 2-3 generations we completely blew up the notion of extended families and close-knit community taking care of each other.

That said...

> If I could vote to make these neighborhoods illegal, I would.

I'm not quite willing to go that far. I would simply make zoning them illegal. If an area is desirable enough to toss up a giant single family home next door to a few 3 flats - so be it. But I should be just as allowed to come buy that place, tear it down, and toss a small apartment building in it's place. Additionally I'd be in favor of laws that make it illegal (or exceedingly difficult) to require setbacks/minimum parking/etc. for most areas.

Basically I'd like to see a legal framework that brings us back to "natural" incremental city development vs. this BS planned crap that never works. The only cities in the world people marvel at (at least in western societies) are those that predated zoning law.

Choice and freedom are a beautiful thing. The problem now is there is little choice due to subsidy and zoning laws.

I found the opposite to be true, we lived in the South Bay in denser townhomes and everyone was very anti-social. Now that we’ve moved to the east bay to a SFH area the neighbors are more invested in the neighborhood and we have far more social interactions. We’re also a 10 minute walk to great shops/bars/doughnuts. The options aren’t burbs or dense urban housing, you can have SFH in an urban area.

> I would simply make zoning them illegal.

Sorry, yes that's exactly what I meant and we're in total agreement. There's no way I'd advocate tearing these neighborhoods down, only make it illegal to continue to protect their zoning, just like this new law in Oregon. I think that's a super solution, and I'd happily vote for it in my own state.

It somewhat works in Japan because you can't register a car without having a dedicated parking space.

In the US, an apartment complex in an ordinary suburban neighborhood would swipe all the on-street parking and probably people's lawns as well. Those home owners expect nearly exclusive use of the street parking for their guests.

if you allow retail mixed with single family you get people walking to corner markets for groceries and to the pub.

water restrictions that prevent wasteful lawns, eliminate HOA rules that require them

materialism is good right?

self driving EV, also bus stops used to serve suburbia well if the cost of driving was higher it would again.

you got me on the thermal inefficiency surface area to volume trumps any R factor.

how?

sit on your front porch, have block parties. works in many single family neighborhoods. culture not zoning

you can vote for that but I don't think you will be joined by many

Luckily, my vote for single family houses will cancel out your vote.

A single family house in a good and expensive neighborhood is something many people want to get and when people want to get something, they put effort into that and drive the economy up. I'm one of those people and I'm putting a lot of effort to get such a house, paying high taxes on my way there. People who vote for dense multi family housing have probably never lived there. But I did, I came from a ghetto and don't want to go back. Those dense apartment complexes don't solve any of the problems you've listed, but rather introduce new, such as drunk addicts wandering around your complex when you're returning from work. Apartment complexes don't make anyone's lifestyle any less sedentary and any less car dependent, because you still need a car in such a huge country. The US has plenty (too much) land: that's obvious to anyone who's bothered to go on a road trip. Most of that land just sits around unused. The carbon intense lifestyle is caused by the disposable junk products that are intentionally made flawed so we'd have to keep buying new. There is nothing "carbon intense" in putting together a bunch of trees and calling that a house. The cause of materialistic lifestyle is caused by greed: a fundamental flaw in our mentality that humanity will take tens of thousands years to overcome. Petty housing laws aren't going to change that, just like laws aren't going to make a teen grow faster. Economic "segregation" is a good thing as it gives people a choice where to live. Anti-social lifestyle? ROFL. Like I've said, I lived in a ghetto good 20 years. That kind of lifestyle can't be any more anti social. Some people have that detached from reality idea that if we make all sorts of people live together in packed apartment complexes, the "pro-social lifestyle" would flourish, we'd get nice parks with crowds of happy people and kids running around. None of that would happen. What would happen is a bunch of depressing big apartment buildings with all sorts of sketchy folks wandering around your neighborhood, looking for something to keep themselves busy. And that something is rarely a talk about arts. In such neighborhoods you'd want a car even more, but now for safety reasons and you wouldn't dare to leave your kids alone in such places. "Increases barrier to connect with others" - gosh, I can't stop laughing. The kind of people you would have easier, with no barriers, communication are not MIT professors and you would want a car with tinted windows just to have that barrier to connect with others.

The single family house neighborhoods with HOAs, tiered by social status, is the right way to go as it gives everyone a choice where to live. If you want to build a bunch of tall apartment complexes next to the city center, so you could walk to work, fine, do it, vote for it, but please, keep your hands away from single family houses and HOAs.

> please, keep your hands away from single family houses and HOAs.

No. I vote for what I believe is best for society, and mandatory single-family home neighborhoods are terrible for it.

They're bad for the environment, and they're bad for inequality. The sooner they go away, the better.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with single family neighborhoods

Do they not, by their very nature, enforce low-density housing? Is that not a bad thing to enforce in places with too few dwellings?

It is, and I'm not sure why you got downvoted so heavily.

More housing giving people more freedom to choose where to live is good.

More housing helping make living more affordable is good.

More housing making good jobs in economically booming areas more accessible is good.

More housing density is indisputably better for the environment.

There's many good reasons to be for more housing density, and many fewer good reasons to be against.

How is the desirability of homes in single family neighbourhoods inconsistent with the fact that they tend towards creating haves and have-nots in the market for housing?

The definition of a market is haves and have-nots.

Saying that building expensive things is segragation is thinly veiled strict socialism. What's the alternative, everyone is forced to live in the same housing? You can't force cheap apartments in nice neighborhoods, those neighborhoods will become not nice. Thats how rent control works

I accept that, but policy seems to enforce single family home neighbourhoods in many places. This exacerbates the problem of haves and have-nots in the housing market.

I'm not in the "ban SFH neighbourhoods" camp, but I think we shouldn't have as much of a problem with them becoming denser. Particularly not when the people already living there tend to have the chance to be well-compensated by selling to developers if they want.

This doesn't mean developers should be allowed to let rip either - as one of the other posts says, increased density leads to increased demand for other infrastructure as well.

Basically neither Manhattan nor Houston are really ideal states in my mind. There should be a way to live in the burbs if you want to do that, but I don't think public policy should be vigorously defending the people who do that regardless of obvious social and economic costs.

> Particularly not when the people already living there tend to have the chance to be well-compensated by selling to developers if they want.

the developers have a significant amount of leverage in this situation. if they can build one large apartment building in a low-density sfh neighborhood, they can take a significant chunk of value off all the neighboring homes. if they can secure land to build several large buildings, they can seriously devalue these homes. when they start looking to buy property for the nth building, the homeowner isn't going to get anything close to the original value.

as a society, we should never have allowed this situation to happen in the first place, but now that we have, it's not going to be easy to solve. until you get to pretty high percentiles of wealth, homes tend to be a large fraction of a family's net worth. to suddenly remove the zoning would be a pretty big hit for these people; a lot of them could get upside-down on their mortgages.

I get that those opposed to density claim this is one of the reasons they oppose it, but is there any evidence of it?

Usually an increase in density in an area will increase land values rather then depress them.

I should be able to build whatever I want on my private property. Whether it’s a house or an apartment building.

Are you also going to build the infrastructure to support your apartment building in a neighborhood of single-family homes? Are you going widen the streets, create parking, improve sewer and water lines, add traffic lights, build larger parks, route mass transit, hire more school bus drivers, hire more police? Urban planning and zoning exist for a reason.

Yes in Toronto these are called Development Charges and are charged to the buyer/builder proportional to what they are building.

And I assume that you’d be fine with your neighbour doing the same, irrespective of the impact on the value and enjoyment of your property?

If I'm happy to have gains when I do nothing but my neighbours improve their properties, then I’m also happy to risk losses when I do nothing but my neighbours make changes.

> The definition of a market is haves and have-nots.

Sure, but we're talking about government force, not the market.

It's one thing if the market creates SFH-only neighborhoods, but why should the government be enforcing that as law?

In the same way as taking more than one's fair share of pie is desirable to most.

Oh hey, a username I recognize from the SF subreddit. Hi!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com