From what I’ve seen in and outside America, my gut feeling (I don’t claim expertise) is that zoning can make things worse.
The apartment directly under mine is used as an office. Down and to one side is a psychiatrist. Ground floor is a cafe and a pizza takeaway. The apartment opposite me has a grocery store on the ground floor, an office on the second, a dentist on the third, and it looks like the rest of the units are residential. I may be missing something important about the rules here because I can’t read German well enough, but it feels self-balancing.
America… well, this is a tourist perspective, but I didn’t realise how realistic SimCity was before I visited.
Zoning only became the downfall of American public transit because constituents are selfish; when 80%+ of a county's residents are homeowners, they're incentivized to fight back against anything that would cause their home values to drop (including public transit due to the noise and apartments which would reduce demand for single family homes), and the local politicians are incentivized to listen lest they be ousted in the next election for working against the community's interests.
> incentivized to fight back against anything that would cause their home values to drop
That they perceive will cause their home values to drop. In reality, they use "home value" as a proxy for "my happiness" and tend to block things they don't like, without really considering the impact on prices.
In very large cities, your SFH is worth a shitload more if someone can put an multi-tenant unit down on it. We still see the odd SFH or diner in NYC, which is now worth bajillions of dollars because the city was allowed to grow to be so dense.
Increasing density is pro home values. Anyone fighting against it is absolutely leaving money on the table. They just don't realize it.
Mixed light-commercial and residential is all over the place in US cities. Those places work best when they are supported by transit and fully walkable resources, which often limits their adoption in the US to areas that are highly dense or have newer commuter rail development. Zoning can keep big lot single homes and giant warehouse areas from disrupting those spaces.
Spot on. What zoning proponents miss is that people living and people working and people doing sports etc. are the same people. Zoning is equivalent of a spherical cow in a vacuum and would work only if there are people that work 24/7, then those that live 24/7 etc.
The apartment directly under mine is used as an office. Down and to one side is a psychiatrist. Ground floor is a cafe and a pizza takeaway. The apartment opposite me has a grocery store on the ground floor, an office on the second, a dentist on the third, and it looks like the rest of the units are residential. I may be missing something important about the rules here because I can’t read German well enough, but it feels self-balancing.
America… well, this is a tourist perspective, but I didn’t realise how realistic SimCity was before I visited.