What If Urban Sprawl Is the Only Realistic Way to Create Affordable Cities?

Re:What If Urban Sprawl Is the Only Realistic Way to Create ... by davidw on Wednesday September 14, 2016 @03:40PM (#12500528)

> their development has been entrusted to, well, developers

Bullshit!

Look at the zoning codes for most cities. This is one of the most regulated markets in the US!

Minimum setbacks, heights, parking minimums, lot sizes, allowed uses - the list goes on and on, and is extremely prescriptive and detailed.

For instance, here in Bend Oregon, you can look through the city code for parking minimums:

"Beauty parlor and Barber shop: 3 spaces for each of the first 2 beauty or barber chairs, and 1½ spaces for each additional chair"

And this is pretty typical in the US.

Edit: I'll add that I am not a libertarian "markets solve all problems" kind of guy, but housing/land use is absolutely something where I think we could use more markets. I highly recommend these books:

The Rent is Too Damn High: http://amzn.to/2cxlP87

The Gated City: http://amzn.to/2cf7jBo

As well as this site: http://marketurbanism.com/ (some of those guys are pretty hard core libertarian, but I guess we can agree to disagree on many things and concentrate on markets and urbanism).

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Re:What If Urban Sprawl Is the Only Realistic Way to Create ... by 2AF3 on Thursday September 15, 2016 @11:01AM (#12506721)

Don't forget 'The high cost of Free Parking'

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Re:What If Urban Sprawl Is the Only Realistic Way to Create ... by skilesare on Wednesday September 14, 2016 @05:51PM (#12501505)

I'll raise you Houston, TX.

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Re:What If Urban Sprawl Is the Only Realistic Way to Create ... by davidw on Wednesday September 14, 2016 @05:53PM (#12501517)

Still has a lot of regulation:

http://marketurbanism.com/2016/06/02/houston-beautiful-yet-p...

But it is affordable, which is good.

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