While zoning is a perfectly fine strategy to map new suburban cul-de-sac subdivisions and to stop growth, it backfires when we try to use it to guide the future of an evolving, dynamic city like Los Angeles. Zoning is a 20th century relic designed to “protect” existing residents from the encroachment of people and buildings they see as “undesirable.” [...]
we should be following Chicago’s approach by focusing on public spaces, infrastructure and other common assets.
— latimes.com
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What is all of this media obsession with zoning and affordable housing? Zoning is a long process decided by local politics, not by some heavy handed technocrats and developers. This idea that building more in LA and NYC is going to solve problems is ridiculous...(Though conveniently lucrative for the "affordable housing" CityLab developer-media quid pro quo that is already fizzling out) The goal should be to bring better jobs to other cities where housing is already affordable.
LiMX, are in favor of not adding new housing to existing cities like LA and New York?
The fight over zoning is about density which is controlled through zoning, also controlled by zoning is use and use adjacency but this is less of an issue as we lose our manufacturing sector of our economy. Homeowners are opposed to diluting the market with more units which will suppress their property values unless they redevelop to reach the highest and best development for their land. Zoning is one of many constraints on the market and can lead to housing shortages and that leads to gentrification and the pushing out of poor people. Also saying "we are concerned with overcrowding" is essentially the new way of saying "we don't want those people here" and zoning has and will continue to be an effective means to discriminate against people and keep people segregated by class and family structure and by extension race.
The author makes some sensible points about trying to create dynamic multi-use areas (would agree that over separation of functions is outdated), but when concerns about overcrowding is equated to racism my developer-dar goes off. That argument may be valid in certain circumstances, but developers favorite tactic now is to cry racist whenever a neighborhood tries to protect its historic structures and design from crap high rises.... zoning is imperfect but we need a new system to intelligently design cities.
The flaw in this current civic thinking seems to be, hey, here's a successful neighborhood / city, let's build a bunch of crap on it--rather than trying to figure out what makes is successful and duplicating that elsewhere.
I love those wonderful WPA maps. But they're not zoning (projected land use) maps, only surveys of then-existing uses. (Sorry for the nerd turd.)
thank you citizen, that was educational...
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