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I can tell you that lack of regulation also causes problems. My kids school is only a half mile away through medium density housing, and they still can’t make it the whole way without walking in the road because the city won’t force people to make sidewalks.
You expect the city to build roads, so why the home owner to build sidewalks?
Well sure, but the city won’t build sidewalks either.
Why would homeowners have to build sidewalks? Why don't the housing developers do it? Thats how it works in the UK for new estates
He's taking the piss. The hyperbole being "why won't the homeowners take it upon themselves to pull their children up by their bootstraps and build sidewalks to the school" in the sense that America is a hellscape car centrism and over self reliance.
Cut to a shot of the ancient city planner wondering why the city burned to the ground
I think the real trick is knowing which regulations are written in blood and/or misery, and which ones are based on bullshit (like parking minimums).
Parking was written in the pain of not finding a parking spot. While not blood, the pain was and is real. We should be against parking minimums anyway because - stores have incentive to find the right amount of parking for customers without overpaying, and parking at all is bad for transit/density and so we want to encourage less parking to encourage transit. Parking regulations thus have other unwanted effects as well.
I mean, that's still kind of bullshit. Unless you want to go full USSR, you don't mandate free stuff, because that distorts the shit out of the market, and you end up with things like cities designed around cars because the inefficiency of that is masked.
And honestly ancient stuff plus fire safety is a pretty good approximation, so the meme holds up.
Outcome of too much zoning regulation is tent cities.
Outcome of zero zoning regulation is Kowloon Walled City.
I'll take Kowloon any day of the week.
That many people that close together is my idea of hell, but you do you
Over a tent city? Keep in mind I live in Canada. Tent city in Canadian winter might or might not be Hell, but it's a good way to get there.
I’d rather freeze to death in a tent than live near that many people.
The suburbs are too dense for me.
Where you live is a compromise. I want to have 100 square miles all my own, with my front door on Time's square. (I'm using times square as a proxy for a desirable place to live, but since I've never been there I don't know if that is actually where I'd want to live) That isn't possible, but it is what I want. Sometimes I want to live on Broadway so those famous shows are easy to get to. Sometimes I want to live where I can safely shoot a gun off my back deck. When I feel like seeing people I want to live where there are a lot of people, when I feel like being alone I want to be far from civilization - yet I still want electric service. Everyone has forms of the above. suburbs are one compromise answer.
That's the neat part: I don't really ever want to be around people. Yes, theaters and museums and clubs are nice, but there's still too goddamn many people and it stops being appealing when I realize I've got to deal with a bunch of psychotic apes.
I'll drag the solar panels out to the boonies myself if want electricity. I just do not want to be around people. If they're half as awful as I am they're not worth it.
I was going to reply with my usual pro city stuff but then I recognized your name and realized we'd already had the whole conversation. So, uh, hello again. Hope you're making progress on your mountain home dreams.
Kowloon city was crazy dense because it was a tiny tract of disputed land in an otherwise regulated urban area. An ancient city is actually a much more typical example, and yeah, I choose that. I'll just get some noseplugs, avoid the most flammable areas, and wash my hands a lot.
And, funny enough, tent cities are super against zoning and other regulation. Homeless people are supposed to leave at all times, wherever they happen to be, while being complained about.
Sure, but that least that city was pretty before it burned as the planner didn't force every building to be white, yellow, or grey, with black shingles on the roof - they do require a "natural" brick facade half way up the front, but not the rest of the house. No other colors, no painting pictures on your walls. No energy efficient light color roofs.
I mean, have you seen a picture from a third world slum? No planning probably means more colours, but I'm not sure wires running all over the place is your cup of tea.
Also modern day Japan.