In Madison Wisconsin there were, for a long time, policies that tended to discourage building on the main east-side thoroughfare. Over time, no one really remembered why those policies, some of which one might construe as "inclusionary zoning", were in place. So we jumped on the urban development bandwagon. We were "All In" on it. I mean getting rid of older policies, introducing things like TIF for that very east side corridor, the whole nine yards. Fast forward to today, and there are buildings built down that corridor with giant footprints. And some people even think they are beautiful. So we congratulated ourselves.

Then something strange started to happen. Whenever it rained, that very corridor would flood. Odd? It never did that before? Well, we never built like that down that corridor before. Not to worry. The flooding wasn't really that bad. But it's gotten worse and worse. And only now are people starting to realize why those old guys back before and during the Greatest Generation wanted to discourage building anything critical there. Long story short, we're a city situated on a system of five lakes, we can't just look at what everyone else in the nation does and copy them. We need to follow a plan that makes sense for our geography. We need policies that make sense for us, even if on the surface, those policies appear to hamstring us economically.

I'm sure Madison is not special in this regard. It's likely most cities have some feature endemic to them that would similarly constrain where and how a wise man would build in that municipality. Like us, most cities have probably even forgotten the why of their constraints. I sympathize. But just as a piece of kindly intended advice from a people who have "been there, done that, currently trying to clean up the mess"...

don't look at old policies and say they're "outdated", or "nonsense"...

look at old policies and ask, "OK, what was the reason for this?"