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Comment by ajmurmann | Hacker News Reader

It's absolutely insane that the government has any say in what a building gets used for. I can see some arguments why the government has a say in constructing a building in the first place, but controlling what it's used for is just planned economy, communist hubris!

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You should talk to people in Houston.

It effectively has no zoning which means you get oil processing plants built next door to elementary schools.

The Austrian Economists will jump in here and say that's why certain private property developments buy the equivalent of "sky rights" (or "land rights" I guess) with adjoining properties to effectively create their own zoning.

This is an incorrect urban myth. Oil plants don’t just get built wherever, and there are a lot of common sense provisions in Houston like limits on what can be built close to schools, even though the city doesn’t have zoning.

It’s flat and ugly there, but surprisingly socially vibrant, open, and interesting in large part because barriers to entry are so low and life is so affordable.

Seconded. I've been here for two years and I'm moving out because it's hot, humid, ugly, and car culture is brutal. However, it's a place where it's easy to get your feet under you and live a good life with interesting things. However, I can't recommend the suburbs - especially Clear Lake. They're the worst, most inescapably bland places I've ever seen.

Being down the street from oil refinery is a small price to pay for a $300k median priced housing.

>you get oil processing plants built next door to elementary schools

Do you have any examples? This doesn't seem likely to me.

LA has zoning yet still places health destroying oil wells right next to housing and schools and retail.

Houston may not have zoning but it has plenty of code that mandate car dependency and huge amounts of driving and therefore suburban blandness.

Regulation versus deregulation is a barren framing, the real problem is absolutely terrible urban planning rules in the US that have created our bad situations. As a field, it would probably be better if it never existed.

Zoning, in general, is a compromise to a set of mutually-exclusive philosophies: individualism (e.g., private property ownership) and collectivism. Society can't function with only one or the other; there needs to be some mediation. Local governments are theoretically responsible to represent the wills of their voters, so this is probably the best way to do that. We can always argue, however, about where specifically particular zoning rules fall on that spectrum.

That's an extreme view. Of course you want some zoning restrictions. Unless you're saying you're ok with (whatever loudest industry with lots of lorry traffic you can think of) being created nextdoors to you. Full anarchy is bad, super restrictive planning is bad too.

Here in Long Beach we have honest to God oil derricks right in the middle of neighborhoods yet our zoning when it comes to new housing is as strict as it gets.

Ok I’m starting a pig farm next door to you.

Won't happen, since the area is too desirable and building a high of farm there isn't economically viable unless you are just gonna do it make your point which would be an extremely rare event we shouldn't optimize for.

Ah, so it's only a problem that should affect poor people who live in undesirable areas.

Let's have some fun with this. So maybe I am near a hospital, or an elementary school, whatever. I have a nice plot of land. You think people will be okay with me storing nuclear waste for a fee on that land?

Maybe I am next to your house. I want to have a hog farm or a 24/7 very loud factory.

We have environmental protection laws and safety regulations that will prevent you from supporting nuclear waste without massive precautions. Now, I'll concede that there is value in separating polluting industries from business and residential areas. In general, I think a system like Japan has that's much coarser and centrally administered to prevent kicking away the latter by wealthy home owners would be friendly desirable. The US zoning system is so fundamentally broken and full of overreach that no zoning would be a massive improvement.

Ironically the most conservative areas are the ones who fall the hardest for the communist hubris, which is why you can’t get a beer without driving in so much of the USA.

They think govt is bad, wait til they paint their house blue in their gated HOA communitiy.

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