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Comment by 999900000999 | Hacker News Reader

Let's take this to the extreme, do you think you have a right to set up a commercial kitchen in your home, and set up patio furniture for random people to show up and order take out?

Don't you see an issue of every single person decides to do this in your neighborhood, traffic being the first thing.

The other issue too, is most people are renting out apartments, and then Airbnbing them. Like, at that point it's not your property, you're just granted temporary permission to use it. Likewise, most condo boards don't want you to use your property as an Airbnb.

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> Let's take this to the extreme, do you think you have a right to set up a commercial kitchen in your home, and set up patio furniture for random people to show up and order take out?

You can do this in Japan. Why shouldn't you be able to do this?

Japan doesn't have nearly as many cars per capita.

Regards you can't just ignore zoning laws because you feel like it.

We could change the zoning laws so that it isn't illegal, though.

One of the ways you can reduce cars is by zoning to allow greater density, which enables forms of transit which are more space-efficient than cars are. It's a chicken and egg problem, but people will be crying out for better cycle ways and trains and buses if housing becomes more dense.

Also, having commercial spread throughout residential areas reduces the amount of travel between areas, because you don't need to go far to get to the amenities you want.

It's a bit strange to give Japan's lower cars per capita as a rationale for this, when surely the reason there are fewer cars per capita is because people have access to their daily necessities without a car because of more permissive zoning.

I'm perplexed to see that you are afraid of random people coming into your neighborhood. In fact I'm more perplexing about the zoning laws in America.

What you mentioned is a very common thing in multiple countries - No one is afraid of random people coming into the neighborhood. (Neither do they all have guns to protect themselves).

> set up a commercial kitchen in your home, and set up patio furniture for random people to show up and order take out?

This already happens in my country. It's a great way to support entrepreneurship and small businesses. I can't imagine how authoritarian the country must be to criminalize this. Are you living in North Korea or Cuba by any chance

This seems to be pretty common where I'm living in Mexico and is also pretty great. But also everywhere is walkable and no one is driving their canyonero to go and pick up tacos.

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