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Comment by akmiller | Hacker News Reader

Because in the absence of regulation, companies will be driven by the market to do the "right" thing? This is not a problem in which the solution is likely to be highly profitable (or even profitable at all) so I'm not sure why you suggest that a free and unregulated market would lead to an improvement in this scenario.

You mention zoning laws in particular. Those were designed for specific reasons so what about them would you change? Surely you aren't suggesting just to get rid of them all?

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Form Based Zoning Codes are a good step. The goal there is to focus on physical form instead of land use. So as an overly broad example - keep the height and setback restrictions but remove the rules about subdividing a residence or converting a residence to retail or office. This allows market forces to have a stronger influence on the real estate market.

An example is Japanese zoning [1]. Zones are layered - if you can build an apartment, you can also build a single-family home. In the US, they are all distinct - single family only or apartments only - no choice.

1 - https://devonzuegel.com/post/north-american-vs-japanese-zoni...

To a large extent, yes, get rid of them all. The Japanese zoning system (applied at the state level in the US) makes a lot of sense to me.

Nothing like buying a house and having a bus depot opened on the lot next door a year later. #freemarket

I would never advocate for zero zoning. But, allowing easy transition from single-family to duplex/townhome. And allowing light commercial/retail to be mixed with residential.

nothing like never being able to afford a house ever at all. And when you finally are able too, with a humungous mortgage and insane property taxes (due to the high price you paid for it).

No-zoning means housing is much much cheaper, we're talking 100K - 800K difference or more. With all the money you saved, you'd be able to buy another house far away from that bus depot.

> With all the money you saved, you'd be able to buy another house far away from that bus depot.

> ... and have another bus depot opened on that lot next door a year later.

and so on.

Is this so common a thing, new bus depots? From "depot" rather than "station" I'm envisioning Greyhound buses. I was under the impression that long-distance bus ridership was stable if not declining...

Besides which, does anyone really deserve to live a certain minimum distance from transportation options? Why would anyone dislike her neighbors that much?

Trees, meet forest. Bus depot, power station, factory, Amazon warehouse, sewage treatment plant. They are interchangeable in the sense that you don't necessarily want to live directly next to one, which is why to an extent zoning exists.

No zoning doesn't mean it's cheaper. There's zero evidence to support that prices magically go down because zoning laws go away. The only thing that will decrease cost is more supply or less demand. Zoning laws should be made more sensible to allow for combined work and living spaces. Transit systems should be prioritized, but otherwise if housing is to expensive move further away. I commuted for almost 10 years almost an hour to get a house I could afford. Now that my career is more established we were able to move into a closer house. That's simple arbitrage. City prices are always going to be way more expensive than suburbs. Better punished transportation and slowly removing the parking requirements will solve the problem long term. It's a simple solution.

I would get rid of them entirely for at least half the areas/city. Then, you could have the other half of the city with zoning laws and let those people pay through the nose for the so called benefits of "zoning"

I genuinely don't understand how people, out-weigh the benefits of zoning against the million dollar price tagged homes. What is so important, that justifies you go into debt 800K plus extra?

Personally, I'd rather pay 200K for a home, rather than 1 million $ for the same home but with zoning laws. Now, I don't know if it's a 5 to 1 difference in every case. But, we all know 5 to 1 difference in cost is not at all unusual on a per sq ft basis.

Where I am, in Vancouver BC, the price tag for detached houses starts around a million, it's hard to actually find a condo for as little as 200K assuming you'd like decent access to transit or to not live in a sardine can.

Found lots of detached houses in Vancouver for around 150k CAD a few miles away, do you mean that you can't find them in the city center? When people say that they pay a million for a house in the valley what they mean is that they paid a million for a house and still have to commute for an hour per day.

Probably because zoning isn’t the reason for high prices in most cities

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