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Comment by jxramos | Hacker News Reader

> The city councils and zoning boards had zero authority to deny the projects. Zero.

How did this authority come to be in the first place? How did cities magically get this authority to dictate how people should build. I imagine such laws didn’t always exist, how far back does this stuff go? Likewise how did states get authority over the cities on local matters that have to be obeyed?

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It goes back to the late 1800's and Early 1900's and like many legal overreaches in the US, zoning laws were primarily spawned from a desire to discriminate on the basis of race or class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning_in_the_United_States#Or...

WP may not be entirely evenhanded on this subject.

I generally avoid citing Wikipedia directly but in this case I feel it gives a pretty digestible overview while being fairly well sourced throughout. Even if it's not perfectly Fair & Balanced^tm I don't think people in the early 1900s using the law to suppress minorities/the poor is a such contested viewpoint that we need to hunt for the perfectly centrist perspective to get a rough idea.

In the US states are the ultimate unit of law (at least pre civil war). States can supersede the authority of their cities and counties with near impunity since there is no Bill of Rights between each state and its constituent parts.

That’s interesting that we have county and city governing bodies at all. It’s natural things like those bodies would unfold but to go this long with the state staying out of these affairs and stepping in when needed is pretty fascinating to see in real time like this.

Up until 10-15 years ago the California legislature was far more conservative and pretty much on board with restrictive housing practices.

I think it started in Euclid Ohio and went to the Supreme Court.

Spot on, look at that. Good memory there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_of_Euclid_v._Ambler_Re....

In one case, because 2.3M gallons of warm molasses flooded a neighborhood and horribly killed people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood.

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