• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

The Conservative Case Against the Suburbs

Many zoning codes include parking minimums based on housing units in resi and sq footage in commercial/office areas.

If indeed a business would go under without parking, we can expect the market to provide the right number of spaces without government intervention. Perhaps a small business owner knows something about her clients that a bureaucrat does not.

I have no problem with that. Let the market decide.
 
Many zoning codes include parking minimums based on housing units in resi and sq footage in commercial/office areas.

If indeed a business would go under without parking, we can expect the market to provide the right number of spaces without government intervention. Perhaps a small business owner knows something about her clients that a bureaucrat does not.

Buffalo is especially bad re: parking minimums.

Good article on New Urbanism in Buffalo: http://thebaffler.com/salvos/buffalo-exchange
 
I agree in theory but I think parking influences the market rather than the other way around. If a set of downtown businesses are all competing for parking, it doesn't help if the parking isn't enough for all of them to succeed.

The bigger problem is sprawling shopping developments. In that case the parking minimums should just be significantly less.
 
Zone too stringently, get housing crises in NYC and SF. Zone too loosely, get an explosion-prone fertilizer factory near a middle school in Texas.

Institutions are difficult.
 
Last edited:
Zone too stringently, get housing crises in NYC and SF. Zone too loosely, get an explosion-prone fertilizer factory near an elementary school in Texas.

Institutions are difficult.

Well, you can do one without the other. Protective zoning can exist without hyper-specific zoning. Also, most zoning boards are mad corrupt.

Bloomberg changed the zoning classification of over half of NYC in his tenure. That is nuts.

I don't know much about it, but Houston has no zoning and never has. Interesting case study.
 
I've worked in real estate development law my whole career, and pretty much every development project involves a lot of mental gymnastics about how to shoehorn an economically productive building onto a given piece of land while still complying with mandatory parking minimums.

It's really not that hard. You just pay less for the land.
 
Which is kind of the point. Unnecessary regulation makes the sellers land less valuable and less economically productive for the buyer.
 
Meh. I think the Erosion of Cities or Attrition of Automobiles chapter of The Death and Life of Great American Cities argues well that the problem isn't cars per se.

Well, one of the biggest factors is that most zoning codes require a minimum level of parking that really hurt density and are aesthetically poor.
 
Sure, I can get on board with that. Maybe I should say "the way we value fucking car transit, man" instead.
 
Back
Top