> I'd suggest living in southeast / east Asia for a while if you think anarchical development is a good idea. It all falls apart when you need to build, maintain and provide basic services (electricity, water, sewage.)

"It all falls apart"? I beg to differ. It is a continuum of cities being differently developed, yes. But many cities (Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei) are not all that far from many European cities, and they are often far more vibrant (think Manhattan or Paris).

In fact, it is more of an uneven development, where things like subways, street food and internet might be much better, but sewage and smog is worse. It is mostly just different and depends on what you focus your attention on, seeing the bad things that are different or the good things.

The cities you mention all all what you'd call top-tier cities in Asia, all with significant municipal planning and zoning.

I'm talking in particular about cities which have little-to-no planning (look at 1-10m population non-capital cities through China, Indonesia, India etc.)

When we were living in Guangzhou we had to deal with constant blackouts, water stopping at least once a week. Our visits to friends in Hunan and surrounding provinces were practically the same experience.

Have to compare apples to apples though, i.e. reasonably similar standards of living and cost of living. All of the above cities started out very organically, and a lot of their vibrancy comes from their density, narrow streets, markets, etc.

The same is true of many European cities as well, such as Paris and London. It just happened a long time ago and it is hidden under the layers of time (for example parts of Paris changed drastically 150 years ago with Hausmann). I specifically left out Singapore because, while a well-planned and pleasant city, a huge part of it doesn't strike me as having being created organically. A tell-tale sign is the lack of narrow streets in most places, instead having a lot of huge roads (with very little traffic compared to US cities, though).

It seems to me that one of the main differences is whether a city was created before or after cars were created. See this image for an illustration: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/Revised_petro...

There is a difference between mixed use zoning and not having ridiculous building height restrictions and still having both public and private works insure there is adequate sewer and electric capacity for the growing city.

If anything, you should shift the barrier a bit. Instead of saying you cannot build because X Y or Z, change it to be that you cannot rent or sell or open to the public without X Y and Z. It kills the nimbyism if the building is already there, but still keeps consumer protection in place to stop you from ending up in an apartment building built this century with exposed asbestos.

Yeah I have no idea what's wrong with East Asian cities. Taipei can be ugly, but damned if it isn't convenient to get around. The transport network there puts any western city I've been to of similar to size to shame. As for Hong Kong, not only does it have great public transport as well, but it's also strikingly good looking.

Can't speak for Bangkok though, but Taipei and Hong Kong have incredible transport systems.

Wow, weird that some of the richest cities in the continent would be nice.

It might be simplifying it a bit here, but are cities well-planned because they're rich, or are they rich because they are well-planned?

Closer to the former. Both Hong Kong and Singapore were rich trading ports long before subways and meaningful city planning.

You can easily have taxes and utilities without zoning laws.