WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.100 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I want to start 00:00:02.100 --> 00:00:06.099 today with a bit of a Matrix moment. Okay, I'm 00:00:06.099 --> 00:00:07.960 intrigued. You know that scene, right, where 00:00:07.960 --> 00:00:11.279 Neo finally stops seeing the walls and the furniture, 00:00:11.380 --> 00:00:14.839 and he just starts seeing the green code cascading 00:00:14.839 --> 00:00:17.120 down? Oh yeah, the code that's making up the 00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:19.440 reality around him? Exactly. He stops seeing 00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:21.440 the illusion and starts seeing the software. 00:00:21.699 --> 00:00:24.219 I know exactly the one. Right. So I want to try 00:00:24.219 --> 00:00:26.839 to do that today, but for the physical world. 00:00:27.559 --> 00:00:31.559 I want you. and everyone listening to just take 00:00:31.559 --> 00:00:33.700 a look around for a second. It's a good exercise. 00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:36.000 Seriously. If you're at home, look out the window. 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:38.179 If you're walking your dog, just look at the 00:00:38.179 --> 00:00:40.679 street. If you're driving, maybe keep your eyes 00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:42.539 on the road, but look at the strip mall you just 00:00:42.539 --> 00:00:44.979 passed. What do you see? And more importantly, 00:00:45.100 --> 00:00:47.560 why do you see it? Well, normally you see a house 00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:51.979 or a factory or a skyscraper. And you think, 00:00:52.119 --> 00:00:54.399 okay, that skyscraper's there because a developer 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:56.840 bought the land and decided to build a tall building. 00:00:57.380 --> 00:01:00.420 Simple enough. Or that factory is way over on 00:01:00.420 --> 00:01:02.240 the edge of town because, you know, land was 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:04.420 probably cheap out there. We tend to think the 00:01:04.420 --> 00:01:07.439 layout of our world is, I don't know, organic. 00:01:07.719 --> 00:01:10.620 We think it's the result of the free market or 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:13.180 just the natural way cities grow over time. It 00:01:13.180 --> 00:01:16.579 just sort of happened. Exactly. But as we went 00:01:16.579 --> 00:01:19.040 through the research for this deep dive, I realized 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:22.680 the American city is about as organic as a microchip. 00:01:22.829 --> 00:01:26.170 It is engineered. It is coded. And that code 00:01:26.170 --> 00:01:27.829 is what we're talking about today. We are talking 00:01:27.829 --> 00:01:31.409 about zoning. And I can hear the collective groan 00:01:31.409 --> 00:01:33.849 of the audience right now. Oh, absolutely. Zoning. 00:01:34.170 --> 00:01:38.310 It sounds like the absolute tedious peak of local 00:01:38.310 --> 00:01:40.629 bureaucracy. It really does. It brings to mind 00:01:40.629 --> 00:01:43.750 late night city council meetings, bad coffee, 00:01:43.930 --> 00:01:46.069 stacks of paper. And people arguing about the 00:01:46.069 --> 00:01:48.069 height of offense. It sounds incredibly boring. 00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:50.579 It sounds like the driest topic we could possibly 00:01:50.579 --> 00:01:52.420 pick. Yeah. But here's the headline I want to 00:01:52.420 --> 00:01:53.799 start with and the reason we were doing this. 00:01:53.879 --> 00:01:57.439 Okay. This boring bureaucracy is arguably the 00:01:57.439 --> 00:02:00.140 most powerful social engineering tool in American 00:02:00.140 --> 00:02:02.680 history. That is not an exaggeration at all. 00:02:02.739 --> 00:02:05.239 It is the operating system of the built environment. 00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:07.780 It determines who your neighbors are. It determines 00:02:07.780 --> 00:02:10.240 if you can walk to a grocery store or if you 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:12.280 have to get in a car and drive. It determines 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:15.150 how much your house is worth. Or if you can even 00:02:15.150 --> 00:02:17.669 afford a house in the first place. And as we're 00:02:17.669 --> 00:02:20.530 going to see, it has determined quite strictly 00:02:20.530 --> 00:02:24.009 how segregated our society remains to this day. 00:02:24.110 --> 00:02:27.050 It's the invisible architecture. And to understand 00:02:27.050 --> 00:02:29.590 it, we have to understand that this system, I 00:02:29.590 --> 00:02:31.969 mean, it didn't just appear out of the ether. 00:02:32.030 --> 00:02:35.150 It was invented. It was invented. It was invented 00:02:35.150 --> 00:02:38.129 for very specific reasons that have, frankly, 00:02:38.229 --> 00:02:41.469 nothing to do with fence heights. So our mission 00:02:41.469 --> 00:02:43.900 today. is to unpack this beast. We're going to 00:02:43.900 --> 00:02:46.199 look at how a system that was originally designed 00:02:46.199 --> 00:02:49.659 just to stop nuisances, like, you know, simply 00:02:49.659 --> 00:02:51.699 keeping a slaughterhouse away from a kindergarten. 00:02:51.939 --> 00:02:54.039 Which everyone agrees is a good idea. Right. 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:57.360 How did that simple idea somehow mutate into 00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:02.000 this massive tool for wealth creation and exclusion? 00:03:02.460 --> 00:03:05.020 It's a fascinating and kind of scary evolution. 00:03:05.259 --> 00:03:07.340 But before we get into the history, which involves 00:03:07.340 --> 00:03:09.340 everything from laundromats to mountain lions, 00:03:09.500 --> 00:03:12.039 weirdly enough. It gets weird. We probably need 00:03:12.039 --> 00:03:15.000 to agree on terms. When you and I say zoning, 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:17.580 what are we actually defining? Yeah, let's get 00:03:17.580 --> 00:03:19.020 the definitions out of the way so we can get 00:03:19.020 --> 00:03:21.319 to the drama. Yeah. Because for me, zoning just 00:03:21.319 --> 00:03:23.199 feels like a map with colors on it, you know, 00:03:23.219 --> 00:03:25.620 red, yellow, blue. That's the visual representation 00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:29.180 for sure. But strictly speaking, zoning is a 00:03:29.180 --> 00:03:31.580 system of laws that divides a jurisdiction's 00:03:31.580 --> 00:03:34.800 land into districts or zones. Yeah. And within 00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:37.520 those zones, the law limits two main things, 00:03:37.780 --> 00:03:41.400 use and form. Use and form. Okay, let's break 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:43.560 those down. Use seems straightforward enough. 00:03:43.740 --> 00:03:46.840 Use is the what. What activity is allowed to 00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:49.520 happen on this square of dirt? Can you build 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:51.580 a house? Can you build a smelting plant? Can 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:53.520 you open a Starbucks? So you can't build a house 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:55.560 in a factory zone. Right. In a strict zoning 00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:58.060 regime, these are mutually exclusive. You cannot 00:03:58.060 --> 00:04:00.080 put the Starbucks in the smelting plant zone, 00:04:00.219 --> 00:04:02.460 and you certainly can't put the smelting plant 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:05.319 in the residential zone. Got it. And form, what's 00:04:05.319 --> 00:04:08.840 that? Form is the how. It dictates what the building 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:11.639 physically looks like. How tall can it be? How 00:04:11.639 --> 00:04:13.659 far back from the street does it have to be? 00:04:13.699 --> 00:04:16.920 That's the setback. How much of the lot can be 00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:20.220 covered in concrete versus, say, grass? This 00:04:20.220 --> 00:04:23.259 is often called the bulk regulation. So use is 00:04:23.259 --> 00:04:27.899 no factories here, and form is your porch can 00:04:27.899 --> 00:04:30.639 only be 10 feet from the sidewalk. Precisely. 00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:34.199 And the scope of this is just... While it regulates 00:04:34.199 --> 00:04:36.839 everything, it's not just big categories. It 00:04:36.839 --> 00:04:39.019 gets more specific. Oh, incredibly granular. 00:04:39.240 --> 00:04:41.720 Some zoning codes will specify whether you can 00:04:41.720 --> 00:04:44.639 sell furniture in a specific spot or how many 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:46.839 square feet of paved space you can have in your 00:04:46.839 --> 00:04:48.959 driveway. Now, here's the part that I got stuck 00:04:48.959 --> 00:04:51.800 on when I was reading. I own my house. I pay 00:04:51.800 --> 00:04:54.180 the mortgage. I pay the taxes. If I want to build 00:04:54.180 --> 00:04:56.279 a shed in the backyard to sell homemade pickles, 00:04:56.459 --> 00:04:58.519 or if I want to build a roller coaster for my 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:00.220 kids, why does the government have the right 00:05:00.220 --> 00:05:02.720 to stop me? Isn't that a violation of my property 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:04.839 rights? And you have just hit on the central 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:06.620 tension of the last hundred years. It feels like 00:05:06.620 --> 00:05:09.319 it should be my land, my rules. You would think 00:05:09.319 --> 00:05:12.439 that owning land means you control it. But legally, 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:15.899 zoning relies on a concept called police power. 00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:19.860 Police power. That sounds intense. It sounds 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:21.959 like it involved handcuffs and SWAT teams. It 00:05:21.959 --> 00:05:24.360 does sound that way, doesn't it? But in constitutional 00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:28.480 law, it's much, much broader. Police power doesn't 00:05:28.480 --> 00:05:30.980 just mean law enforcement officers. It refers 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:33.720 to the inherent capacity of the states to regulate 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:36.660 behavior and enforce order within their territory. 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:39.040 And what's the justification for that? The betterment 00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:42.160 of the health, safety, morals, and general welfare 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:45.110 of their inhabitants. Ah. General welfare, that's 00:05:45.110 --> 00:05:47.209 the magic phrase. That is the catch -all. The 00:05:47.209 --> 00:05:50.290 argument is, your right to build a pickle shed 00:05:50.290 --> 00:05:53.050 or a roller coaster ends where your neighbor's 00:05:53.050 --> 00:05:56.389 right to a rat -free, quiet, safe existence begins. 00:05:56.430 --> 00:05:59.110 So my rights end at my property line. Basically. 00:05:59.230 --> 00:06:01.850 And the state delegates this police power to 00:06:01.850 --> 00:06:03.990 your local town council. So when the planning 00:06:03.990 --> 00:06:07.410 board tells you no, they are essentially flexing 00:06:07.410 --> 00:06:10.029 the same constitutional muscle as a cop arresting 00:06:10.029 --> 00:06:12.589 a bank robber. They are maintaining order. That 00:06:12.589 --> 00:06:14.769 puts a very different spin on the local planning 00:06:14.769 --> 00:06:16.870 board meeting. They aren't just bureaucrats. 00:06:16.889 --> 00:06:19.829 They're exercising state power. Exactly. And 00:06:19.829 --> 00:06:22.129 to understand how they got that power, we have 00:06:22.129 --> 00:06:24.930 to wind the clock back. Because this didn't start 00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:27.629 with some grand plan to make cities beautiful. 00:06:27.850 --> 00:06:30.209 No. Looking at the history, it seems incredibly 00:06:30.209 --> 00:06:32.550 reactive. It wasn't some founding father who 00:06:32.550 --> 00:06:34.870 loved urban planning. Not at all. It started 00:06:34.870 --> 00:06:37.410 in the Wild West, essentially. California, late 00:06:37.410 --> 00:06:40.310 19th century. This is where we see the first 00:06:40.310 --> 00:06:43.970 real attempts at land use control. And it brings 00:06:43.970 --> 00:06:47.389 us to the wash house ordinances. Wash houses. 00:06:47.629 --> 00:06:49.709 OK, so for the modern listener, a wash house 00:06:49.709 --> 00:06:51.930 implies the laundromat with, you know, coin operated 00:06:51.930 --> 00:06:54.970 machines. Yeah. But in 1880s California, this 00:06:54.970 --> 00:06:57.509 was an industrial operation. It absolutely was. 00:06:57.589 --> 00:07:01.589 You have to imagine large vats of boiling water, 00:07:01.709 --> 00:07:04.889 steam, chemicals, open fires to heat the iron. 00:07:05.029 --> 00:07:06.730 All in wooden buildings probably? Often in wooden 00:07:06.730 --> 00:07:08.889 buildings. They were significant fire hazards 00:07:08.889 --> 00:07:11.310 and they were noisy. They were industrial. So 00:07:11.310 --> 00:07:14.769 looking at Modesto, California in 1885, they 00:07:14.769 --> 00:07:17.230 pass an ordinance banning wash houses from certain 00:07:17.230 --> 00:07:19.649 areas of the city. On paper, you can see why 00:07:19.649 --> 00:07:21.930 a city might want to do that. If I'm living in 00:07:21.930 --> 00:07:25.829 a wooden house in Modesto in 1885, Maybe I don't 00:07:25.829 --> 00:07:28.129 want a fire -prone industrial laundry next door. 00:07:28.310 --> 00:07:30.449 That sounds like a legitimate safety concern. 00:07:30.670 --> 00:07:32.470 That was the legal argument. Health and safety. 00:07:32.649 --> 00:07:35.290 It always is. But we have to look at the context. 00:07:35.470 --> 00:07:38.089 Who owned the laundries in California at that 00:07:38.089 --> 00:07:40.810 time? It was predominantly, if not almost exclusively, 00:07:41.029 --> 00:07:43.949 Chinese residents. Exactly. This was the era 00:07:43.949 --> 00:07:47.110 of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Anti -Chinese sentiment 00:07:47.110 --> 00:07:49.470 was the dominant political force in California. 00:07:49.470 --> 00:07:51.709 So this wasn't really about fire safety. Well, 00:07:51.750 --> 00:07:54.930 the law was about fire safety. But the motivation 00:07:54.930 --> 00:07:58.709 was something else entirely. Modesto passes this 00:07:58.709 --> 00:08:01.689 ordinance. Then Los Angeles follows suit between 00:08:01.689 --> 00:08:05.329 1904 and 1909. They created specific districts 00:08:05.329 --> 00:08:07.750 where laundries were illegal. And the boundaries 00:08:07.750 --> 00:08:10.050 of those districts just happened to align with 00:08:10.050 --> 00:08:11.870 where the white residents lived. You got it. 00:08:11.910 --> 00:08:14.670 It was a master class in using a neutral law 00:08:14.670 --> 00:08:17.250 to achieve a discriminatory outcome. Right. The 00:08:17.250 --> 00:08:19.629 law didn't say no Chinese people allowed. No, 00:08:19.670 --> 00:08:22.459 it said no laundries allowed. But since the laundries 00:08:22.459 --> 00:08:24.740 were the economic engine of the Chinese community, 00:08:25.079 --> 00:08:27.939 the result was exclusion. This seems to be the 00:08:27.939 --> 00:08:30.680 recurring theme of our research today. The tool 00:08:30.680 --> 00:08:34.039 is technical. It's about fire safety or noise. 00:08:34.299 --> 00:08:37.090 But the motive is social. That's the pattern. 00:08:37.210 --> 00:08:40.009 And it wasn't just laundries. Los Angeles started 00:08:40.009 --> 00:08:42.950 using these early laws to separate other nuisances. 00:08:42.970 --> 00:08:44.850 We're talking about slaughterhouses, tanneries. 00:08:44.990 --> 00:08:46.850 Things that smell bad. Things that smell really 00:08:46.850 --> 00:08:50.649 bad. And crucially for L .A. oil drilling. I 00:08:50.649 --> 00:08:53.169 always forget that L .A. was basically one giant 00:08:53.169 --> 00:08:55.870 oil field back then. Massive. It was there will 00:08:55.870 --> 00:08:58.590 be blood meets the beach. You had oil derricks 00:08:58.590 --> 00:09:00.289 popping up in people's front yards. They were 00:09:00.289 --> 00:09:02.590 loud. They smelled like sulfur. And they occasionally, 00:09:02.649 --> 00:09:05.370 you know, exploded. OK, so. I'm going to play 00:09:05.370 --> 00:09:08.070 devil's advocate here again. If I bought a nice 00:09:08.070 --> 00:09:11.350 bundalow, I definitely do not want an oil derrick 00:09:11.350 --> 00:09:13.590 or a slaughterhouse next to my porch. Of course 00:09:13.590 --> 00:09:15.710 not. That seems like a very rational thing for 00:09:15.710 --> 00:09:18.230 the government to prevent. It is rational. And 00:09:18.230 --> 00:09:20.850 that is why zoning survived the courts initially, 00:09:21.029 --> 00:09:24.289 because at its core, separating a slaughterhouse 00:09:24.289 --> 00:09:26.870 from a kindergarten is a good idea. No one argues 00:09:26.870 --> 00:09:28.850 with that. The problem is that once you establish 00:09:28.850 --> 00:09:31.899 the legal power. To separate uses based on nuisance, 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:34.840 you can start defining nuisance in very subjective 00:09:34.840 --> 00:09:37.320 ways. Right. A slaughterhouse is a nuisance. 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:39.799 Is an apartment building a nuisance? Is a corner 00:09:39.799 --> 00:09:42.039 store a nuisance? Is a family with a different 00:09:42.039 --> 00:09:44.700 skin color a nuisance? That's where the slippery 00:09:44.700 --> 00:09:47.179 slope begins. So while California was dealing 00:09:47.179 --> 00:09:49.980 with wash houses and oil wells focusing on use, 00:09:50.220 --> 00:09:53.299 New York City was dealing with a totally different 00:09:53.299 --> 00:09:55.700 problem. A very different problem. They were 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:59.080 dealing with form. And specifically, they were 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:02.419 dealing with the sun. The sun. Or rather the 00:10:02.419 --> 00:10:05.340 lack of it. This takes us to 1915, right? Yes. 00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:08.360 The catalyst here is a specific building. The 00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:10.559 Equitable Building at 120 Broadway. It's still 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:12.360 there today. You can go see it. And the problem 00:10:12.360 --> 00:10:14.639 wasn't that it was too tall necessarily. It was 00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:17.799 that it was fat. It was massive. It went straight 00:10:17.799 --> 00:10:19.860 up from the property line. It covered the entire 00:10:19.860 --> 00:10:22.399 lot. It didn't taper at all. So it was just a 00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:24.980 giant block. A giant stone block that blocked 00:10:24.980 --> 00:10:27.259 the windows of neighboring buildings and cast 00:10:27.259 --> 00:10:29.759 a shadow that extended for blocks. It literally 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:31.639 stole the sunshine from the... streets below. 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:34.879 And people were terrified. They looked at this 00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:37.039 thing and thought, if every building in Manhattan 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:40.500 is built like this, New York will become a dark, 00:10:40.500 --> 00:10:44.940 dank maze. No light, no air, just canyons of 00:10:44.940 --> 00:10:48.000 stone. It was a very real, very visceral fear. 00:10:48.179 --> 00:10:52.299 So in 1916, New York City passed the first citywide 00:10:52.299 --> 00:10:55.100 zoning resolution. This is really the grandfather 00:10:55.100 --> 00:10:57.960 of modern zoning in America. But they didn't 00:10:57.960 --> 00:10:59.759 ban skyscrapers. I mean, that would have been 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:01.940 impossible in New York. No, that would have killed 00:11:01.940 --> 00:11:04.679 the real estate market dead. Instead, they mandated 00:11:04.679 --> 00:11:07.980 setbacks. Explain setbacks for us, because this 00:11:07.980 --> 00:11:10.200 fundamentally changed how our cities look. Imagine 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:12.860 a wedding cake. OK. The base is wide. Then as 00:11:12.860 --> 00:11:15.159 you go up, the next layer is a bit smaller. back 00:11:15.159 --> 00:11:17.200 from the edge then the next layer is smaller 00:11:17.200 --> 00:11:20.220 again the 1916 law said that once a building 00:11:20.220 --> 00:11:22.399 reached a certain height a height based on the 00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:24.519 width of the street it was on it had to step 00:11:24.519 --> 00:11:26.759 back so the higher you go the skinnier the building 00:11:26.759 --> 00:11:30.139 has to get exactly this allowed light and air 00:11:30.139 --> 00:11:32.259 to actually reach the sidewalk it stopped the 00:11:32.259 --> 00:11:35.879 streets from becoming dark tunnels and this literally 00:11:35.879 --> 00:11:39.019 shaped the skyline of new york city for decades 00:11:39.019 --> 00:11:41.440 if you look at the empire state building or the 00:11:41.440 --> 00:11:44.860 chrysler building they have that stepped tapering 00:11:44.860 --> 00:11:47.639 shape. That classic art deco look. That's not 00:11:47.639 --> 00:11:49.860 just an artistic choice. That's the law. It was 00:11:49.860 --> 00:11:52.889 the law. And it was popularized by this illustrator, 00:11:53.029 --> 00:11:56.129 Hugh Ferris. He drew these moody, futuristic, 00:11:56.429 --> 00:11:59.590 almost gothic renderings of what the city would 00:11:59.590 --> 00:12:02.250 look like under these new laws. He made zoning 00:12:02.250 --> 00:12:05.529 look almost romantic. Wow. He turned a bureaucratic 00:12:05.529 --> 00:12:07.590 rule about angles into a whole architectural 00:12:07.590 --> 00:12:10.830 style. So we have California banning uses to 00:12:10.830 --> 00:12:13.490 separate people and industries. We have New York 00:12:13.490 --> 00:12:16.429 regulating form to save the sunlight. But how 00:12:16.429 --> 00:12:19.090 did this go from just a few big cities to the 00:12:19.090 --> 00:12:21.240 standard operation? procedure for the entire 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.279 United States. For that, we have to look at the 00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:25.799 federal government and specifically a man named 00:12:25.799 --> 00:12:27.960 Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover. Before he was 00:12:27.960 --> 00:12:29.559 president, he was the secretary of commerce. 00:12:29.700 --> 00:12:32.100 And Hoover was an engineer by trade. He was a 00:12:32.100 --> 00:12:34.519 huge believer in standardization, efficiency 00:12:34.519 --> 00:12:37.559 and order. He wanted to increase home ownership 00:12:37.559 --> 00:12:40.320 in America. And he saw zoning as a tool for that. 00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:43.399 He saw it as a way to protect property values, 00:12:43.659 --> 00:12:45.919 which he believed would encourage people to buy 00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:48.259 homes and feel secure in their investment. So 00:12:48.259 --> 00:12:51.299 he didn't want every city in America reinventing 00:12:51.299 --> 00:12:53.710 the wheel. trying to write their own zoning laws 00:12:53.710 --> 00:12:56.330 from scratch. Right. His team at the Commerce 00:12:56.330 --> 00:12:58.750 Department drafted something called the Standard 00:12:58.750 --> 00:13:03.429 State Zoning Enabling Act, or SZEA. It was published 00:13:03.429 --> 00:13:06.830 in 1922 and revised in 1924. It was basically 00:13:06.830 --> 00:13:09.029 a template. It was a copy and paste job. The 00:13:09.029 --> 00:13:10.950 federal government basically said to the states, 00:13:11.049 --> 00:13:13.690 hey, you want to do zoning? Here is a pre -written 00:13:13.690 --> 00:13:16.590 law that lets your town set it up just past this. 00:13:16.789 --> 00:13:19.120 And they did. They absolutely did. It swept the 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:21.659 country. This is why zoning laws in a small town 00:13:21.659 --> 00:13:25.000 in Ohio often look legally very similar to zoning 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:27.379 laws in a suburb of Seattle. They're all working 00:13:27.379 --> 00:13:29.539 off the same hundred -year -old template. The 00:13:29.539 --> 00:13:31.820 same template provided by Herbert Hoover. Okay, 00:13:31.860 --> 00:13:36.419 so the system is in place. But Americans, we 00:13:36.419 --> 00:13:38.539 don't like being told what to do with our property. 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:41.340 If I buy a plot of land and I want to maximize 00:13:41.340 --> 00:13:43.799 my profit, surely I'm going to fight back against 00:13:43.799 --> 00:13:46.139 these rules. Oh, the fight was immediate. And 00:13:46.139 --> 00:13:48.460 this brings us to the single most important legal 00:13:48.460 --> 00:13:51.700 case in the history of zoning. The big one. Village 00:13:51.700 --> 00:13:55.460 of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. from 1926. 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:59.559 This is the Euclidean and Euclidean zoning. I 00:13:59.559 --> 00:14:01.100 admit, when I first heard that term, I thought 00:14:01.100 --> 00:14:03.409 it was about geometry. Like Euclid the mathematician. 00:14:03.769 --> 00:14:06.029 A lot of people do. It's a common mistake. But 00:14:06.029 --> 00:14:08.450 no, it refers to the village of Euclid, a suburb 00:14:08.450 --> 00:14:11.529 of Cleveland. And this case is the reason zoning 00:14:11.529 --> 00:14:13.690 as we know it exists today. So set the scene 00:14:13.690 --> 00:14:16.509 for us. What happened in Euclid? Ambler Realty 00:14:16.509 --> 00:14:19.289 Company owned a large tract of land, about 68 00:14:19.289 --> 00:14:22.190 acres. It was prime real estate. It sat right 00:14:22.190 --> 00:14:24.809 between a railroad and a main road. Perfect for 00:14:24.809 --> 00:14:27.500 industry. Perfect. In a free market, this land 00:14:27.500 --> 00:14:29.960 was destined for factories, warehouses. That's 00:14:29.960 --> 00:14:31.820 where the money was. But the village of Euclid 00:14:31.820 --> 00:14:34.340 had other ideas. The village passed a comprehensive 00:14:34.340 --> 00:14:37.419 zoning ordinance, and they zoned a huge chunk 00:14:37.419 --> 00:14:40.480 of Ambler's land for residential use only. So 00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:42.259 Ambler Realty is sitting there doing the math. 00:14:42.500 --> 00:14:45.080 If I sell this for factories, it's worth, say, 00:14:45.259 --> 00:14:47.980 $10 ,000 an acre. If I had to sell it for houses, 00:14:48.059 --> 00:14:51.100 it's worth maybe $2 ,500 an acre. That's right. 00:14:51.220 --> 00:14:53.720 The government, with the stroke of a pen, just 00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:56.220 wiped out 75 % of their land's value. So they 00:14:56.220 --> 00:14:59.480 sued. They sued. And their argument was powerful. 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:02.940 They said this was a taking of property without 00:15:02.940 --> 00:15:05.139 due process, a violation of the 14th Amendment. 00:15:05.419 --> 00:15:07.759 They said, you didn't physically take my land, 00:15:07.820 --> 00:15:10.139 but you took its value. You took my right to 00:15:10.139 --> 00:15:12.980 use it. And initially the lower court agreed 00:15:12.980 --> 00:15:16.159 with them. They did. The trial court judge actually 00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:19.299 called zoning an illegitimate device. He saw 00:15:19.299 --> 00:15:21.500 right through it. He said it would lead to economic 00:15:21.500 --> 00:15:24.039 segregation and that you can't just strip value 00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:26.460 from people to make the town look nice. But then 00:15:26.460 --> 00:15:28.379 it went all the way to the Supreme Court. And 00:15:28.379 --> 00:15:31.059 the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, reversed 00:15:31.059 --> 00:15:33.379 the lower court. They sided with the village 00:15:33.379 --> 00:15:36.840 of Euclid. Why? How did they justify that massive 00:15:36.840 --> 00:15:39.190 loss of value for the property owner? They went 00:15:39.190 --> 00:15:41.769 right back to that nuisance argument. Justice 00:15:41.769 --> 00:15:44.429 Sutherland wrote the opinion. He famously said, 00:15:44.529 --> 00:15:52.399 That is the famous quote. A pig in the parlor. 00:15:52.460 --> 00:15:56.139 And by separating uses, keeping the pigs, which 00:15:56.139 --> 00:15:58.379 were factories, out of the parlor, which were 00:15:58.379 --> 00:16:00.480 the residential neighborhoods, the government 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:02.379 is protecting the health and safety of the community. 00:16:02.679 --> 00:16:04.700 And that protection is more important than the 00:16:04.700 --> 00:16:07.360 developer's profit. They ruled that it outweighed 00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:09.659 the financial loss of the developer. And boom, 00:16:09.879 --> 00:16:12.759 Euclidean zoning becomes the law of the land. 00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:15.860 Separation of uses. Houses here, shops there, 00:16:15.980 --> 00:16:18.860 factories way over there. the government officially 00:16:18.860 --> 00:16:21.039 has the right to decide. But there's another 00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:23.259 really important case we have to mention, which 00:16:23.259 --> 00:16:25.799 actually happened before Euclid, that sets up 00:16:25.799 --> 00:16:28.759 the racial dynamic perfectly. Okay. Buchanan 00:16:28.759 --> 00:16:32.539 v. Worley in 1917. This one is fascinating because... 00:16:32.700 --> 00:16:35.019 On the surface, it seems like a win for civil 00:16:35.019 --> 00:16:36.820 rights. But when you dig into the reasoning, 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:40.720 it's purely capitalistic. It is. So in 1910, 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:43.000 the city of Baltimore tried to pass a zoning 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.639 law that was explicitly racial. It designated 00:16:45.639 --> 00:16:49.240 blocks as either black or white. Wow. They weren't 00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:52.000 even hiding it. No laundries excused. This block 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:53.919 is for black people. This block is for white 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:56.419 people. No subtlety at all. And other cities 00:16:56.419 --> 00:16:59.799 followed. Atlanta, Louisville, St. Louis. But 00:16:59.799 --> 00:17:03.240 in 1917, the Supreme Court struck this down in 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:06.920 Buchanan v. Worley. So they said, you can't segregate 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:09.759 by race. That sounds good. It does sound good. 00:17:09.819 --> 00:17:13.099 But, and this is the absolute key, they didn't 00:17:13.099 --> 00:17:15.180 strike it down because they believed in racial 00:17:15.180 --> 00:17:17.980 equality or integration. They struck it down 00:17:17.980 --> 00:17:22.009 because it violated the right to contract. So 00:17:22.009 --> 00:17:25.089 it wasn't it's wrong to discriminate. It was 00:17:25.089 --> 00:17:27.529 it's wrong to tell a white property owner they 00:17:27.529 --> 00:17:29.529 can't sell to a black buyer if they want to. 00:17:29.690 --> 00:17:32.250 Exactly. It was a property rights ruling, not 00:17:32.250 --> 00:17:34.450 a civil rights ruling. They said the government 00:17:34.450 --> 00:17:36.970 cannot interfere with the sale and alienation 00:17:36.970 --> 00:17:39.250 of property based on the color of the buyer's 00:17:39.250 --> 00:17:42.670 skin. So explicit racial zoning is dead in 1917. 00:17:42.990 --> 00:17:45.390 But we know cities didn't just give up and integrate. 00:17:45.799 --> 00:17:48.140 Not even close. They just got smarter. They found 00:17:48.140 --> 00:17:49.799 the loophole. What was the loophole? Since they 00:17:49.799 --> 00:17:52.059 couldn't zone by race, they started zoning by 00:17:52.059 --> 00:17:54.880 type of housing. They created single family residential 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:56.839 zones. Which effectively did the same thing. 00:17:57.000 --> 00:17:59.720 Right. If you ban apartments, you are in effect 00:17:59.720 --> 00:18:02.059 banning the people who live in apartments and 00:18:02.059 --> 00:18:04.220 historically who lived in apartments. Lower income 00:18:04.220 --> 00:18:07.380 workers. Yeah. Immigrants. Minorities. Exactly. 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:10.819 So you get segregation by class, which functions 00:18:10.819 --> 00:18:13.299 as a very effective proxy for segregation by 00:18:13.299 --> 00:18:16.980 race, all while appearing race neutral on paper. 00:18:17.140 --> 00:18:19.960 The law just says single family detached homes 00:18:19.960 --> 00:18:23.450 on one acre lots. It doesn't mention race. We 00:18:23.450 --> 00:18:25.910 aren't banning black families. We are just banning 00:18:25.910 --> 00:18:27.809 buildings that aren't single -family mansions. 00:18:27.809 --> 00:18:30.450 It was devious. And incredibly effective. It 00:18:30.450 --> 00:18:33.089 basically created the American suburbs as we 00:18:33.089 --> 00:18:35.289 note them today. Now, whenever I talk about zoning, 00:18:35.450 --> 00:18:38.049 someone always brings up the outlier. The one 00:18:38.049 --> 00:18:40.930 city that zigs while everyone else sags. Yeah, 00:18:40.930 --> 00:18:44.440 yes. Houston, Texas. The no zoning city. I hear 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:46.059 this all the time from my libertarian friends. 00:18:46.200 --> 00:18:48.319 Look at Houston. They have no zoning and it works 00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:50.740 fine. Or from critics who say Houston has no 00:18:50.740 --> 00:18:53.200 zoning and it's a chaotic, ugly mess. Right. 00:18:53.259 --> 00:18:55.180 So what's the reality? Well, let's burst the 00:18:55.180 --> 00:18:57.539 myth a little bit. Houston doesn't have traditional 00:18:57.539 --> 00:19:00.319 use zoning. It's true. Voters there rejected 00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:04.460 it three separate times in 1948, 1962 and 1993. 00:19:04.819 --> 00:19:07.819 They are very proud of that fact. But I sense 00:19:07.819 --> 00:19:10.019 a but coming. But if you drive around Houston, 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:12.900 does it look like a chaotic jumble of factories 00:19:12.900 --> 00:19:15.900 next to nurseries? No. No, it doesn't. It looks 00:19:15.900 --> 00:19:18.160 like every other Sunbelt city. It looks like 00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:21.460 Atlanta. It looks like Phoenix. It's sprawling 00:19:21.460 --> 00:19:24.299 and car dependent. So why is that? If there's 00:19:24.299 --> 00:19:26.339 no zoning, why isn't there a steel mill next 00:19:26.339 --> 00:19:28.839 to the elementary school? Two big reasons. First, 00:19:28.980 --> 00:19:30.920 they have deed restrictions. These are private 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:33.240 rules, not government rules. Yes, private covenants. 00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:35.920 When a developer builds a subdivision in Houston, 00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:38.839 they write strict rules into the deeds of the 00:19:38.839 --> 00:19:41.680 houses. Like what? You can only use this for 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:43.839 a single -family home. You can't run a business 00:19:43.839 --> 00:19:47.059 here. You must cut your grass every week. And 00:19:47.059 --> 00:19:49.660 the city enforces these private rules. The city 00:19:49.660 --> 00:19:51.900 attorney's office handles the enforcement. So 00:19:51.900 --> 00:19:53.839 instead of the government saying this is a residential 00:19:53.839 --> 00:19:56.660 zone, the private developer says this is a residential 00:19:56.660 --> 00:19:59.619 neighborhood and the city backs them up. So the 00:19:59.619 --> 00:20:01.940 outcome is identical. The outcome is functionally 00:20:01.940 --> 00:20:03.980 identical. And the second reason. What's that? 00:20:04.359 --> 00:20:07.579 Development regulations. Houston still has rules 00:20:07.579 --> 00:20:10.819 about setbacks. And crucially, they have strict, 00:20:11.099 --> 00:20:13.640 and I mean strict, parking requirements. Ah, 00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:16.019 the parking requirements. The hidden killer. 00:20:16.339 --> 00:20:18.900 They are the hidden killer of density. If you 00:20:18.900 --> 00:20:22.339 legally force every business to have a massive 00:20:22.339 --> 00:20:25.839 parking lot, say, 10 spots for every 1 ,000 square 00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:28.460 feet of retail space. You physically cannot build 00:20:28.460 --> 00:20:30.700 a walkable neighborhood. You can't. It's impossible. 00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:33.420 If 60 % of your city's land has to be asphalt. 00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:35.640 for cars. You force everything to be spread out. 00:20:35.799 --> 00:20:38.140 So the no zoning city is actually just a privatized 00:20:38.140 --> 00:20:40.599 zoning city with really aggressive parking mandates. 00:20:41.220 --> 00:20:43.700 Precisely. It's a distinction without a difference, 00:20:43.819 --> 00:20:46.920 really. It's a failed control group in the great 00:20:46.920 --> 00:20:49.140 American experiment. OK, let's talk about the 00:20:49.140 --> 00:20:52.599 bill. The cost. Because this isn't just about 00:20:52.599 --> 00:20:55.299 aesthetics or history. This hits our wallets 00:20:55.299 --> 00:20:58.339 every single month. We're in a housing affordability 00:20:58.339 --> 00:21:01.240 crisis in this country. A severe one. The rent 00:21:01.240 --> 00:21:04.099 is too damn high. How much of that is zoning's 00:21:04.099 --> 00:21:06.759 fault? A significant amount. I mean, it comes 00:21:06.759 --> 00:21:10.079 down to basic supply and demand. And zoning, 00:21:10.299 --> 00:21:13.240 by its very nature, artificially limits supply. 00:21:13.559 --> 00:21:15.680 Give me an example of how that works mechanically. 00:21:15.900 --> 00:21:19.259 Okay, let's talk about minimum lot sizes. This 00:21:19.259 --> 00:21:22.099 is a very common zoning tool. A town might say, 00:21:22.200 --> 00:21:24.759 you can only build a house here if the lot is 00:21:24.759 --> 00:21:28.019 at least one acre. One acre. That's huge. In 00:21:28.019 --> 00:21:30.740 a dense city, you could fit 10, 15 townhouses 00:21:30.740 --> 00:21:32.599 on an acre. You could fit an apartment building 00:21:32.599 --> 00:21:35.640 with 50 units. Right. So instead of 50 homes 00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:38.220 for 50 families, the law says you can only have 00:21:38.220 --> 00:21:42.170 one home for one wealthy family. drastically 00:21:42.170 --> 00:21:45.410 legally reduce the supply of housing on that 00:21:45.410 --> 00:21:47.890 piece of land. And when supply is low and demand 00:21:47.890 --> 00:21:50.650 is high. Prices skyrocket. Economists have a 00:21:50.650 --> 00:21:52.369 concept for this. They call it the zoning tax. 00:21:52.609 --> 00:21:54.250 This isn't a check you write to the government, 00:21:54.349 --> 00:21:57.369 right? No, it's not a literal tax. It's the difference 00:21:57.369 --> 00:22:00.329 between the actual cost of construction, the 00:22:00.329 --> 00:22:03.470 materials, the labor, the raw land and the final 00:22:03.470 --> 00:22:06.529 price of the house. It's the artificial inflation 00:22:06.529 --> 00:22:09.509 of the value due to regulatory scarcity. It's 00:22:09.509 --> 00:22:11.690 the premium you pay just for the permission to 00:22:11.690 --> 00:22:13.589 exist. That's a great way to put it. I saw some 00:22:13.589 --> 00:22:15.269 numbers on this in our notes and they were staggering. 00:22:15.470 --> 00:22:19.069 In San Francisco, that zoning tax is estimated 00:22:19.069 --> 00:22:22.230 at over $400 ,000 per home. Let that sink in. 00:22:22.490 --> 00:22:24.970 $400 ,000 of the price tag isn't the bricks, 00:22:25.109 --> 00:22:27.829 the wood, or the labor. It's not the profit the 00:22:27.829 --> 00:22:30.750 developer made. It is just air. It's the cost 00:22:30.750 --> 00:22:32.809 of permission to exist in a restricted market. 00:22:33.029 --> 00:22:35.460 And it's not just San Francisco. No. In Seattle, 00:22:35.579 --> 00:22:37.859 New York City and L .A., it's around $200 ,000. 00:22:38.119 --> 00:22:41.400 Chicago and D .C., around $80 ,000. That effectively 00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:43.460 prices out an entire generation of people. I 00:22:43.460 --> 00:22:45.440 mean, $200 ,000 is the down payment. It's the 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:46.960 whole mortgage in other parts of the country. 00:22:47.099 --> 00:22:49.000 It does. And it hurts the economy as a whole. 00:22:49.140 --> 00:22:52.119 There was a fascinating study in 2017 that suggested 00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:55.259 if just three metro areas, New York, San Francisco 00:22:55.259 --> 00:22:57.859 and San Jose, deregulated their zoning to the 00:22:57.859 --> 00:23:01.059 level of the median U .S. city, U .S. GDP could 00:23:01.059 --> 00:23:04.690 wise by almost 9%. 9%. Other studies have put 00:23:04.690 --> 00:23:07.890 it as high as 12%. That's trillions of dollars. 00:23:07.990 --> 00:23:11.109 How? Because right now, zoning prevents labor 00:23:11.109 --> 00:23:13.890 mobility. It prevents people from moving to where 00:23:13.890 --> 00:23:16.269 the most productive jobs are. If a talented software 00:23:16.269 --> 00:23:18.549 engineer can't afford to live in Silicon Valley, 00:23:18.789 --> 00:23:21.230 they don't move there. They take a lower productivity 00:23:21.230 --> 00:23:24.109 job somewhere else. We are leaving massive economic 00:23:24.109 --> 00:23:26.190 growth on the table because we refuse to build 00:23:26.190 --> 00:23:28.930 apartments. And speaking of Silicon Valley, let's 00:23:28.930 --> 00:23:31.130 talk about Los Altos Hills. The ultimate example. 00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:34.140 Los Altos Hills is a town in Silicon Valley. 00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:37.539 The entire town, and I mean essentially the whole 00:23:37.539 --> 00:23:41.599 thing, is zoned residential with a one acre minimum 00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:44.740 lot size. And only one primary dwelling is allowed 00:23:44.740 --> 00:23:47.460 on each of those one acre lots. Correct. The 00:23:47.460 --> 00:23:50.359 courts upheld this back in the 1970s. So effectively, 00:23:50.500 --> 00:23:53.039 this town has legally banned anyone who cannot 00:23:53.039 --> 00:23:56.059 afford an acre of land in one of the most expensive 00:23:56.059 --> 00:23:58.470 real estate markets on planet Earth. It is a 00:23:58.470 --> 00:24:01.250 velvet rope around the entire city. It's a gated 00:24:01.250 --> 00:24:04.109 community disguised as a municipality. It is. 00:24:04.150 --> 00:24:06.289 And this leads us directly into the social engineering 00:24:06.289 --> 00:24:09.230 aspect, because when you ask these towns why 00:24:09.230 --> 00:24:11.869 they do this, usually they give you some excuse 00:24:11.869 --> 00:24:15.869 about traffic or school overcrowding. But sometimes. 00:24:16.859 --> 00:24:18.900 Sometimes they tell you the quiet part out loud. 00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:21.519 Yeah, I saw this quote from Barrington Hills, 00:24:21.660 --> 00:24:23.940 Illinois. It's incredible. This was a few years 00:24:23.940 --> 00:24:26.619 back. They have a five -acre minimum lot size. 00:24:26.759 --> 00:24:29.839 That's acres. Five acres. And officials there 00:24:29.839 --> 00:24:32.180 actually told the Chicago Tribune that this helped 00:24:32.180 --> 00:24:35.319 keep out the riffraff. Keep out the riffraff. 00:24:35.359 --> 00:24:37.299 I mean, at least they're honest. It's stark. 00:24:37.819 --> 00:24:40.119 But it's not just about lot size. It gets even 00:24:40.119 --> 00:24:42.259 more personal. It's about the very definition 00:24:42.259 --> 00:24:44.880 of family. This brings us to a Supreme Court 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:48.119 case I'd never even heard of. Village of Belterre 00:24:48.119 --> 00:24:51.079 v. Boras. This is a crucial one, especially for 00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:53.539 college towns. The village of Belterre, New York, 00:24:53.599 --> 00:24:56.339 had a zoning ordinance that defined a family 00:24:56.339 --> 00:24:58.920 very strictly. It said a family is people related 00:24:58.920 --> 00:25:01.880 by blood, adoption, or marriage. So a traditional 00:25:01.880 --> 00:25:03.980 nuclear family, essentially. Right. And then 00:25:03.980 --> 00:25:06.160 it restricted the number of unrelated people 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:08.279 who could live together in one house to just 00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:11.519 two. Two. So a group of six college students 00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:14.740 renting a large house to save money. Illegal. 00:25:14.819 --> 00:25:18.240 Six elderly women, like the Golden Girls, trying 00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:20.940 to live together for companionship and to save 00:25:20.940 --> 00:25:23.599 money. Also illegal. Did the Supreme Court really 00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:27.200 uphold that? They did. In 1974, they said the 00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:29.380 government has a legitimate interest in protecting 00:25:29.380 --> 00:25:31.819 traditional family values and keeping neighborhoods 00:25:31.819 --> 00:25:34.839 quiet. They said boarding houses and fraternity 00:25:34.839 --> 00:25:37.640 houses bring noise and traffic. But it effectively 00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:40.440 targets the poor and the young. If I can't afford 00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:43.039 a house on my own, my only option is to have 00:25:43.039 --> 00:25:45.880 roommates and this town is telling me that having 00:25:45.880 --> 00:25:48.980 roommates is a crime. It creates a huge barrier 00:25:48.980 --> 00:25:51.680 to entry. And this is where the politics get 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:54.359 very, very messy. We tend to think of regulation 00:25:54.359 --> 00:25:57.240 as a liberal thing and deregulation as a conservative 00:25:57.240 --> 00:25:59.779 thing. But in zoning, those lines are completely 00:25:59.779 --> 00:26:02.680 blurred. Right. The data I saw shows that support 00:26:02.680 --> 00:26:05.539 for banning apartments, multifamily housing is 00:26:05.539 --> 00:26:07.859 concentrated among affluent homeowners. And there 00:26:07.859 --> 00:26:09.880 is no substantial difference between liberal 00:26:09.880 --> 00:26:11.960 and conservative homeowners on this issue. When 00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:15.180 it comes to their own backyard, ideology goes 00:26:15.180 --> 00:26:18.119 right out the window. Everyone becomes a NIMBY. 00:26:18.859 --> 00:26:22.000 Not in my backyard. So a liberal homeowner might 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:24.819 have a Black Lives Matter sign on the lawn. But 00:26:24.819 --> 00:26:27.099 then they'll go to a city council meeting and 00:26:27.099 --> 00:26:29.799 fight tooth and nail against a new duplex that 00:26:29.799 --> 00:26:32.220 would allow black families to actually live in 00:26:32.220 --> 00:26:34.740 that neighborhood. It's the classic, I love humanity, 00:26:34.980 --> 00:26:36.400 I just don't want them parking in front of my 00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:38.500 driveway. That's it, exactly. And we have to 00:26:38.500 --> 00:26:40.839 talk about the environmental cost, too. The irony 00:26:40.839 --> 00:26:43.700 here is just so thick. Right. Zoning was originally 00:26:43.700 --> 00:26:46.759 about health, fresh air, separation from industrial 00:26:46.759 --> 00:26:50.210 smoke. But by enforcing low density, by making 00:26:50.210 --> 00:26:53.309 everything spread out so far, zoning forces car 00:26:53.309 --> 00:26:55.710 culture. You have to drive everywhere. You have 00:26:55.710 --> 00:26:57.890 to. You can't walk to the grocery store if the 00:26:57.890 --> 00:26:59.650 zoning code says the grocery store has to be 00:26:59.650 --> 00:27:01.609 three miles away across a six -lane highway. 00:27:01.910 --> 00:27:04.569 So we are all driving more, longer commutes, 00:27:04.609 --> 00:27:08.269 more emissions. Exactly. We are pushing development 00:27:08.269 --> 00:27:11.589 out to the fringes, to the exurbs, where carbon 00:27:11.589 --> 00:27:14.410 emissions per capita are much higher. And we 00:27:14.410 --> 00:27:17.150 are creating sedentary lifestyles because walking 00:27:17.150 --> 00:27:19.710 isn't a viable form of transportation for most 00:27:19.710 --> 00:27:21.750 Americans. So the tool designed to protect public 00:27:21.750 --> 00:27:24.710 health is now contributing to obesity and climate 00:27:24.710 --> 00:27:29.029 change. A tragic irony. Now, sometimes this NMB 00:27:29.029 --> 00:27:32.750 -ism, this desire to stop development, gets weird. 00:27:33.420 --> 00:27:35.519 I mean, really weird. You want to talk about 00:27:35.519 --> 00:27:36.759 the mountain lions? I want to talk about the 00:27:36.759 --> 00:27:39.000 mountain lions. The Woodside incident. This is 00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:42.059 a classic. It just happened in 2022. Okay, so 00:27:42.059 --> 00:27:44.859 Woodside, California. Very wealthy town in Silicon 00:27:44.859 --> 00:27:47.200 Valley. The state of California passed a law, 00:27:47.319 --> 00:27:50.200 SB 9, saying towns had to allow more housing. 00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:52.839 Woodside didn't want to do it. So what was their 00:27:52.839 --> 00:27:55.500 brilliant plan? Their plan was to declare the 00:27:55.500 --> 00:27:58.220 entire town a mountain lion habitat. The whole 00:27:58.220 --> 00:28:00.299 town. The manicured lawns, the swimming pools, 00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:02.960 the tennis courts. All of it. The whole town. 00:28:03.380 --> 00:28:05.980 Their argument was that because mountain lions 00:28:05.980 --> 00:28:08.240 might potentially walk through, they couldn't 00:28:08.240 --> 00:28:10.920 possibly build any duplexes. They were trying 00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:13.319 to use an environmental loophole to get out of 00:28:13.319 --> 00:28:16.299 building affordable housing. That is bold. Did 00:28:16.299 --> 00:28:19.519 it work? No, not for a second. The California 00:28:19.519 --> 00:28:22.019 Attorney General, Rob Bonta, shut it down immediately. 00:28:22.619 --> 00:28:25.039 He basically sent them a letter saying, a developed 00:28:25.039 --> 00:28:27.900 suburb is not a protected habitat. Stop acting 00:28:27.900 --> 00:28:30.849 in bad faith. Acting good faith. That seems to 00:28:30.849 --> 00:28:33.410 be the struggle here. Towns are using every trick 00:28:33.410 --> 00:28:35.710 in the book. They are. And it's not just animals. 00:28:35.829 --> 00:28:38.930 It's signs. Lawn signs are actually a huge zoning 00:28:38.930 --> 00:28:41.069 battleground. Really? First Amendment issues. 00:28:41.190 --> 00:28:44.329 Huge First Amendment issues. Zoning regulates 00:28:44.329 --> 00:28:47.549 signage to prevent what they call visual clutter. 00:28:47.750 --> 00:28:50.170 But the courts have consistently ruled you can't 00:28:50.170 --> 00:28:52.549 regulate the content of the sign. So you can 00:28:52.549 --> 00:28:54.769 say no signs bigger than three feet by three 00:28:54.769 --> 00:28:57.210 feet, but you can't say no political sign. Exactly. 00:28:57.210 --> 00:28:59.940 Or no for. For sale signs. This was a big issue 00:28:59.940 --> 00:29:02.240 in the 70s. Some towns tried to ban for sale 00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:04.460 signs. Why would they do that? They claimed they 00:29:04.460 --> 00:29:07.019 wanted to prevent panic selling or blockbusting 00:29:07.019 --> 00:29:09.680 when minority families started moving into a 00:29:09.680 --> 00:29:12.839 neighborhood. But the courts struck that down. 00:29:12.900 --> 00:29:16.640 They said, you can't ban communication just because 00:29:16.640 --> 00:29:19.099 you don't like the message it might send. And 00:29:19.099 --> 00:29:22.279 then there's religion? R -L -U -I -P -A, the 00:29:22.279 --> 00:29:25.180 Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons 00:29:25.180 --> 00:29:28.349 Act. This is a federal law that protects religious 00:29:28.349 --> 00:29:31.609 institutions from discrimination in zoning. Because 00:29:31.609 --> 00:29:34.410 churches are often in residential areas and neighbors 00:29:34.410 --> 00:29:36.509 often complain about the traffic or the noise. 00:29:36.690 --> 00:29:39.250 Or more controversially, about the social services 00:29:39.250 --> 00:29:41.589 they provide. There was this heartbreaking case 00:29:41.589 --> 00:29:44.450 in Gloversville, New York. A free Methodist church 00:29:44.450 --> 00:29:46.849 wanted to open a shelter. For the homeless? For 00:29:46.849 --> 00:29:49.430 the homeless. They wanted to provide 40 beds. 00:29:49.470 --> 00:29:51.470 It was negative four degrees outside. And zoning 00:29:51.470 --> 00:29:54.160 stopped them. The zoning board said a shelter 00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:56.940 wasn't a permitted use in that zone. They effectively 00:29:56.940 --> 00:29:59.299 blocked the church from saving lives in freezing 00:29:59.299 --> 00:30:02.220 weather because it violated the code. That is 00:30:02.220 --> 00:30:05.079 where the rubber meets the road. We're arguing 00:30:05.079 --> 00:30:07.819 about codes and maps and neighborhood character, 00:30:08.019 --> 00:30:10.400 and people are literally freezing to death on 00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:12.519 the street. It highlights the central tension 00:30:12.519 --> 00:30:14.619 between protecting the stability of a neighborhood 00:30:14.619 --> 00:30:17.740 and meeting basic human needs. The system, as 00:30:17.740 --> 00:30:20.940 designed, prioritizes the former. And here's 00:30:20.940 --> 00:30:23.019 the hopeful part of the deep dive. Maybe things 00:30:23.019 --> 00:30:26.160 are changing. We are seeing a shift in the 21st 00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:28.279 century that I don't think anyone predicted 20 00:30:28.279 --> 00:30:30.599 years ago. The pendulum is definitely swinging 00:30:30.599 --> 00:30:34.579 back. For 100 years, local towns had total control. 00:30:34.779 --> 00:30:37.579 The state said, here, you take the power. Now 00:30:37.579 --> 00:30:39.920 states are realizing the towns have, in many 00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:42.680 cases, abused that power. So they're taking it 00:30:42.680 --> 00:30:44.980 back. Let's talk about the pioneers. Minneapolis, 00:30:45.380 --> 00:30:48.079 what did they do? Minneapolis, 2018. They became 00:30:48.079 --> 00:30:51.119 the first major U .S. city to end exclusionary 00:30:51.119 --> 00:30:53.960 single -family zoning. Just ended it. Well, they 00:30:53.960 --> 00:30:56.119 didn't ban single -family homes. They just said, 00:30:56.140 --> 00:30:58.319 you can only build single -family homes. They 00:30:58.319 --> 00:31:01.319 legalized triplexes, essentially citywide. They 00:31:01.319 --> 00:31:03.920 also completely abolished off -street parking 00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:06.700 minimums. That is radical. That is undoing 100 00:31:06.700 --> 00:31:09.039 years of Euclidean thinking. It was a massive 00:31:09.039 --> 00:31:11.619 deal. And then Oregon followed. A state law, 00:31:11.859 --> 00:31:15.140 House Bill 2001 in 2019. What did that do? It 00:31:15.140 --> 00:31:17.480 said, if you are a city with more than 10 ,000 00:31:17.480 --> 00:31:20.200 people, you have to allow duplexes everywhere. 00:31:20.500 --> 00:31:22.819 If you have more than 25 ,000 people, you have 00:31:22.819 --> 00:31:25.720 to allow triplexes and fourplexes. So the state 00:31:25.720 --> 00:31:28.079 of Oregon looked at the local towns and said, 00:31:28.220 --> 00:31:30.539 you aren't building enough housing, so we are 00:31:30.539 --> 00:31:33.140 overriding your local rules. That's exactly it. 00:31:33.220 --> 00:31:35.339 You lost your privileges. California did the 00:31:35.339 --> 00:31:38.660 same with SB 9 in 2021, allowing up to four units 00:31:38.660 --> 00:31:41.059 on what used to be single family lots. And over 00:31:41.059 --> 00:31:43.140 on the East Coast, my home state, Massachusetts. 00:31:44.210 --> 00:31:47.369 The MBTA community's law. This is fascinating 00:31:47.369 --> 00:31:50.809 policy. It requires towns near public transit, 00:31:50.970 --> 00:31:53.829 near the T or the commuter rail two zone for 00:31:53.829 --> 00:31:57.009 multifamily housing as of right. The logic being 00:31:57.009 --> 00:31:59.950 we, the taxpayers of the whole state, built this 00:31:59.950 --> 00:32:02.930 expensive train station. You, the local wealthy 00:32:02.930 --> 00:32:04.950 town, shouldn't be allowed to block people from 00:32:04.950 --> 00:32:07.230 living near it. It makes perfect sense. But it's 00:32:07.230 --> 00:32:09.609 a huge fight. The town of Milton voted not to 00:32:09.609 --> 00:32:13.329 comply in early 2024. They just defied the state 00:32:13.329 --> 00:32:15.200 law. law. So what happens now? Now the attorney 00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:18.220 general is suing them. This is the active battlefront 00:32:18.220 --> 00:32:20.339 of American domestic policy right now. It's happening 00:32:20.339 --> 00:32:23.579 in real time. And the politics are so fascinating 00:32:23.579 --> 00:32:26.559 because it's bipartisan. You have this weird, 00:32:26.599 --> 00:32:30.140 strange bedfellows coalition. The YMBY coalition. 00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:32.819 Yes. In my backyard. You have Republican governors 00:32:32.819 --> 00:32:35.920 like Charlie Baker and Mitt Romney in Massachusetts 00:32:35.920 --> 00:32:39.259 or governors in red states like Montana pushing 00:32:39.259 --> 00:32:41.720 for this. Why? Because they believe in market 00:32:41.720 --> 00:32:44.400 freedom. They believe in property rights. If 00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:47.359 I own the land, let me build on it. Deregulation 00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:50.579 is a conservative value. And at the same time, 00:32:50.579 --> 00:32:52.980 you have progressive Democrats pushing for it. 00:32:53.039 --> 00:32:55.099 For completely different reasons. They're focused 00:32:55.099 --> 00:32:58.140 on affordability, social equity and climate change. 00:32:58.859 --> 00:33:01.079 Density reduces carbon footprints and allows 00:33:01.079 --> 00:33:03.859 for more economic and racial integration. So 00:33:03.859 --> 00:33:05.960 the libertarians and the democratic socialists 00:33:05.960 --> 00:33:08.279 are high -fiving each other over duplexes. It's 00:33:08.279 --> 00:33:10.259 one of the few places in American politics where 00:33:10.259 --> 00:33:12.140 the horseshoe theory is actually working. So 00:33:12.140 --> 00:33:14.160 let's wrap this up. We've covered wash houses, 00:33:14.440 --> 00:33:17.660 wedding cakes, the Supreme Court, and mountain 00:33:17.660 --> 00:33:20.279 lions. What is the big takeaway here? I think 00:33:20.279 --> 00:33:22.740 if we look at the big picture, zoning started 00:33:22.740 --> 00:33:25.700 as a reasonable attempt to fix the chaos of the 00:33:25.700 --> 00:33:29.519 Industrial Revolution. It was about health, light, 00:33:29.759 --> 00:33:33.259 and safety. It was about stopping factories from 00:33:33.259 --> 00:33:35.779 poisoning neighborhoods. A pig in the parlor. 00:33:35.880 --> 00:33:38.059 Right. It was about keeping the pig out of the 00:33:38.059 --> 00:33:41.559 parlor, but it mutated. It did. It mutated. It 00:33:41.559 --> 00:33:43.799 became a mechanism for wealth protection that 00:33:43.799 --> 00:33:46.859 accidentally, or in many cases, purposefully 00:33:46.859 --> 00:33:49.500 broke the housing market and segregated the country. 00:33:49.779 --> 00:33:52.940 It prioritized the property values of the haves 00:33:52.940 --> 00:33:56.099 over the basic needs of the have nots. And now, 00:33:56.140 --> 00:33:58.519 for the first time in a century, we're actively 00:33:58.519 --> 00:34:01.670 trying to undo that Euclidean knot. We're trying 00:34:01.670 --> 00:34:04.109 to blend uses back together. We're trying to 00:34:04.109 --> 00:34:06.589 return to the way we built cities for thousands 00:34:06.589 --> 00:34:10.070 of years before 1960. Organic, mixed, walkable. 00:34:10.329 --> 00:34:12.309 A place where the grocery store is next to the 00:34:12.309 --> 00:34:14.329 barbershop and the barbershop has an apartment 00:34:14.329 --> 00:34:16.690 on top of it. I want to leave our listeners with 00:34:16.690 --> 00:34:18.510 a final thought. You mentioned this to me before 00:34:18.510 --> 00:34:20.090 we started recording and it really stuck with 00:34:20.090 --> 00:34:23.090 me. It's a question of values, really. I want 00:34:23.090 --> 00:34:25.710 you to imagine your own neighborhood right where 00:34:25.710 --> 00:34:28.099 you live. And imagine the zoning laws changed 00:34:28.099 --> 00:34:31.079 tomorrow to allow a small grocery store on the 00:34:31.079 --> 00:34:33.579 corner or a duplex next door to you. Would you 00:34:33.579 --> 00:34:36.099 see that as the destruction of your investment? 00:34:36.280 --> 00:34:39.059 Would you be angry about the potential for more 00:34:39.059 --> 00:34:42.179 traffic and, you know, noise? Or would you see 00:34:42.179 --> 00:34:44.360 it as the creation of a real community, a place 00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:46.179 where you could walk to get a gallon of milk, 00:34:46.300 --> 00:34:48.340 a place where your kid's teacher could afford 00:34:48.340 --> 00:34:51.139 to live? Because ultimately, a city isn't just 00:34:51.139 --> 00:34:53.360 a collection of property values. It's a collection 00:34:53.360 --> 00:34:55.750 of people. Something to think about next time 00:34:55.750 --> 00:34:57.849 you look out that window. Thanks for listening 00:34:57.849 --> 00:34:59.469 to The Deep Dive. See you next time.