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Comment by Toynbeeidea | Hacker News Reader

I live in amerifatland. They're building new houses all the time, everywhere I look, entire complexes of them. "McMansions," we call them.

I make average US wages, have my entire adult life. I cannot afford a house in my city unless I buy a literal ruin in the ghetto. The suburbs are far more expensive, and that's where the McMansion complexes are. I don't know who's buying them, but it isn't me and likely never will be.

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That's because we regulate growth. Seriously. It's exactly the same root cause. Have you heard about why zoning drives up housing prices?

Do you want a strip club or a dispensary to open up next door to where you live? Or maybe a glue factory down the street? There are reasons zoning laws exist, and it isn’t to regulate growth in the sense you’re implying.

Very disingenuous counterpoint.

Actually, yes. I would unironically like the first two things, and what's the issue with the glue factory?

Smell

We already regulate bad smells separately. You can't operate a new glue factory without capturing it.

When people talk about zoning ruining things, they're talking about restrictions on housing. A good system would get rid of 95% of those.

Also corner shops should be allowed everywhere.

99.9% of the work done in zoning is about restricting housing. And no, you shouldn't be allowed to stop any of those things, you can regulate any negative impacts directly if you like.

Yes, all those things are fine.

People should be able to build where they want.

We can have reasonable restrictions around noise and pollution, but not on the land use itself.

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