Comment by triceratops | Hacker News Reader

Comment by triceratops | Hacker News Reader

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> if somebody could build a pig farm, or a heavy-metal processing plant next to your house.

This is called a strawman. Please try better arguments.

People love to talk absurd nonsense about how zoning reform is a slippery slope to having toxic uranium mines dug next to their driveway.

What they really mean is "There will be more traffic, less parking, more noise, more public transit blah blah if someone builds a 3-storey apartment building in my neighborhood." It's understandable to desire this not happen but, like, you don't own the street, and you don't own the lot next door. Stop getting the government to impose your personal preferences on other people's property. If you want the neighborhood to stay unchanged, buy it and do what you want. Neighborhoods are for people to live in. Any zoning reform that allows them to do so safely and comfortably (note: but not necessarily stay the same) should be allowed.

And a suburban housing development would be a stupid place to put a pig farm or heavy-metal processing plant anyway.

I can’t use government to impose my personal preferences, but government exists to impose collective preferences.

We prefer to not have murders, so we make a law. We prefer to not have thefts, so we make a law. Land use policies don’t seem so different.

> to impose collective preferences

So why is zoning a city issue? Homelessness, poverty, and blight are a national concern. Let's do it federally, right?

> Land use policies don’t seem so different [from murder and theft]

I'm astonished that you'd make that comparison but whatever. Land use policies strike at the very foundation of property rights. In a way, they are theft. For the collective good, most people agree that some policies are necessary and important. But they've been weaponized to enrich a few at the expense of the many - the very opposite of collective good.

> Let's do it federally, right?

Find a way to fit it into the enumerated powers of the federal government? Then sure.

I’d hope that land would never be considered interstate commerce, but after recent rulings, I’m not sure the Constitution is even readable by the Court any more.

Legalism when it's something you disagree with, but "collective preference" when it's something you agree with.

The collective preference or legalism that’s in effect currently is that zoning is not a federal power.

For those who would prefer to change the status quo, there’s a documented process to recenter the country onto a new collective preference.

Maybe that's what people complain about where you live. In my city folks complain about having to live next to "the poors". The only thing keeping their property values up is not living next to poor people. It's beyond the pale.

>In my city folks complain about having to live next to "the poors"

That's exactly what the real issue is almost everywhere in America where there's resistance to changing zoning code. All the other stuff is just strawman arguments so these people don't have to openly admit that they don't want to live next to "those people".

I was being charitable to the person I responded to. But also, high-end condo complexes don't bring "the poors" and yet cause problems for single family home owners living nearby.

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