I do not want to live in a high rise or even a 5 story, but if I did, I cannot imagine going some place that doesn't have them and challenging "why don't you have a borg cube for me to live in?"
If you live in a city with a large and growing population it’s natural to build more housing to accommodate the growth. If you don’t like it you’re also free to “Go live somewhere else!” Right?
Although the entire US is the result of newcomers bulldozing the natives, I thought we at least on paper recognize that was not a good thing.
I wasn't sure about expressing an argument that even hints conservative sympathy, but this completely amazing thing you just said removes all doubt. I don't live there and probably never will, but now I say good for them. I hope they tell anyone coming along with the attitude you just expressed to gfys.
Clearly the communities as a whole are trying to maintain an environment they like, and which they already have, not trying to create in anyone else's place to suit themselves, and the zoning is doing exactly the job it exists to do.
I see no reason that more people have to cram in to a place that is already full to capacity according to it's desired density level, until such time as the country runs out of space anywhere else.
I will note again that eliminating the restrictive zoning also doesn't equal a mandate over what landowners must to do with their land. You're welcome to keep your plot as-is. You just can't tell your neighbor what to do with their land.
The municipality IS keeping it's plot the way they want it.
0.25 acre plot is not a country, it's a part of something else, and at that something else level, it is valid to make the same sorts of decisions for themselves as the homeowner does for their lot.
I would hate life in an HOA. What I do about that is I don't move into an HOA, not to move into one and demand that they let me raise chickens on "my own property".
I think I was 15 years old or less the last time I thought zones were some sort of travesty of injustice. Same a taxes.
Things only get difficult when people try to use the government as a cudgel to impose their wants on other people and their land.
If you don't want to live next to someone's Cube or Suburban House, sucks to suck. It's not your land.
If you don't like that we all have to share the space and that some places get earmarked for particular uses, and no you aren't free to build a pig farm or even a human farm just anywhere, even if you buy the land, sucks to suck.
Buy all the land in the entire municipality and populate it with people who all vote to change the zoning. Or don't. But complaining that the current residents won't let you in is just not very defensible.
You raise a fair question regarding what the appropriate level of government and consensus should be to make or change zoning back in reality.
However, it doesnt address the question of how to the reality of populations with mixed opinions on zoning change. Are you talking about a 51% vote threshold, 100% consensus, or simply based on the whim of an unelected official.
I don't like complaining as much as the next guy and dont think anyone has a defacto right to "get in". Rather, Im talking about what rights I have if I'm already in, and maybe always have been.
Texas has "normal" zoning laws everywhere but the city of Houston. You will often see people say that Houston has de facto zoning because of deed restrictions and neighborhood covenants, and this is sort of true, but a lot of Houston does allow for more mixed use than other places and the city seems visibly different than L.A. (or Dallas). Lots of restaurants in industrial areas, etc. Houston is ugly to my eye but I don't think this is why.
On the other hand, I don't want pig farms in residential neighborhoods. On the third hand, the in the U.S. the state government (depending on the state constitution) has the legal right to take those decisions away from municipalities and neighborhoods and probably should. It really is too easy to be in favor of building things that are genuinely necessary and beneficial (not pig farms) in the abstract as long as you can't see them.