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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37972 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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YIMBY sentiment on this forum has (I think) been mostly focused on increasing the density of existing residential zones. However, it may be worth noting that there is an alternative: converting existing agricultural or unused land to low-density residential use (i. e., continuing to "sprawl"). In this article, a former employee of the libertarian Cato Institute accuses that organization of focusing exclusively on high-density housing, and of smearing as racist people who are not interested in long-term high-density living and clamor for more single-family houses. (In his view, upzoning imposed from the top down is not libertarian, because the existing owners have a sort of property right in the zoning of their neighborhood as a substitute for deed restrictions that could or should have been used instead of zoning codes.)

Another issue with increased density: does it actually help affordability long term? That is the reason we want density, right? When you add lanes to a highway, traffic gets better. For a while. Then people get used to the light traffic and change where they live (i.e., further away from town). Then traffic gets bad again. Who's to say that NYC will always be "unaffordable" no matter how dense it is? What if there's no bottom to the demand to live in NYC? What then?

So when you add lanes, more people get to live where they want to live. Isn’t it great?

Haha! Sure. But now traffic is bad again. Should we add a couple more lanes? Do we add homes until we observe demand decrease?

Note: I'm generally in favor of the goals here. I'd love to have my own place in Manhattan for under a thousand bucks per month. Wouldn't need to be nice either. Shared bathroom? Sure. I just want it to be clean and safe. How much does that have to do, really, with building... how much are we talking here, twice the amount of homes in NYC we have now? I honestly don't know.

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