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Comment by aclatuts | Hacker News Reader

I am starting to think zoning is completely outdated now. It may have been needed during industrialization when people did not understand pollution and fire safety. I think the only strict zoning needed is heavy/medium industrial. I think people have a good idea of what to expect from certain buildings and industries and people can raise concern on a case by case basis.

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Not quite - would you want a brothel or a casino to open next door in the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood? Otherwise I’m with you, no reason why shops/restaurants/offices/light industry (one that doesn’t create too much noise/pollution) etc shouldn’t be on the same street as housing.

To be fair, you can regulate against brothels and casinos without resorting to Euclidean zoning, especially mandatory single family zoning and parking mandates.

Yeah, I wasn't disagreeing - I live in a residential neighborhood in Berlin and there are 2 bakeries, a bar and a couple ground-floor offices in my little street alone. The street after that has many shops, restaurants, a post office, etc. It's great!

Why shouldn't brothel be allowed? Maybe not show explicit outside advertising, but I don't really see how one would hurt. They don't have that much traffic, and we already had peepshows and sextoy and porn shops that actually blended quite well in.

Casinos maybe not, too much traffic. Though I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be in a shopping mall for example.

Both attract crime.

so does a bar and a gas station. "Look at all the crime in cities!" Yes, that is where people live.

Not to the same extent as a casino. Maybe "bar" means something else in America, in Germany it's just a place people go to have a drink after work (like "Cheers"). It's not expected to get shitface drunk in them and they are legally obliged to keep quiet outside after 10pm.

You are telling me that these junkies are never violent and there is never fights? As such crime. Or they(bars) don't get robbed or gather loud undesirable people?

Not the same as a casino or brothel. And if it's the kind of bar that does it would get as many complaints (as soon as they make noise after 10PM they'd start getting people calling the police on them). All the bars I know in my neighborhood don't get the kind of trouble you describe (at least not often enough that I ever noticed it).

But it may also be a cultural difference between Germany/Austria and US/UK - bars/pubs are just not that troublesome here.

I don't think that's true, or that it really matters. There's plenty of brothels in Tokyo and crime is as low as it gets.

But even if it did, why should we use zoning to determine where crime is allowed to happen and where it isn't? Address the problem, don't just push it off somewhere else.

You could zone by noise levels.

Casinos shouldn't exist anywhere, and as long as the brothel isn't loud, there isn't any trafficking or abuse of the workers, and it doesn't external advertising, I don't see the problem.

My city and country doesn't have zoning for smaller projects, but it is harder to get business licenses for certain activities if it isn't already happening there. For example, it's going to be much harder to open a bar in a quiet residential area than it would be in the city centre in a street full of other bars.

But why would you want to do that from a business perspective? You want these places to have good access, parking, and other retail businesses nearby ("oh maybe I'll grab a beer after the groceries") which residential areas often do not have. Same for industries too, there are certain needs which you are going to get much easier being in an industrial area where there are similar businesses nearby.

In the city center almost all residential buildings have commercial units <100m2 on the ground floor, outside of the "core" of the city they are usually occupied by independent niche retail businesses. If you want to get an alcohol license you require permission of the building owners, but other than that everything is fair game. A while ago I bought a newly built apartment, and then in the commercial units opened: a nail salon, Italian bar / restaurant, travel agency and a sales office for a plumbing company.

In suburbs there's usually a small shopping center, which has a supermarket and a number of small commercial units all in one building. 3 minutes drive from where I live now the shopping centre has a vet, post office, butcher, coffee shop, bar, bakery, restaurant, and then a playground and skate park for kids.

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