WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.879 You know, I was driving through the suburbs the 00:00:01.879 --> 00:00:04.360 other day, just one of those standard sprawling 00:00:04.360 --> 00:00:08.660 subdivisions. And I had this moment of, I guess 00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:11.099 you'd call it architectural deja vu. You look 00:00:11.099 --> 00:00:13.000 at the setback of the lawns, the width of the 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:15.259 driveway, the fact that the nearest gallon of 00:00:15.259 --> 00:00:17.899 milk is exactly an eight minute drive away. And 00:00:17.899 --> 00:00:21.620 you realize none of this is accidental. Far from 00:00:21.620 --> 00:00:24.160 it. No, it's arguably the most intentional design 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:26.469 project in human history. But we usually think 00:00:26.469 --> 00:00:29.329 of cities as these organic beasts, right? Like 00:00:29.329 --> 00:00:31.829 they just sort of happen. People built houses, 00:00:31.929 --> 00:00:35.229 then a shop opened up, then a road. But looking 00:00:35.229 --> 00:00:37.270 at this stack of research you sent over, the 00:00:37.270 --> 00:00:39.530 articles, the legal history, the international 00:00:39.530 --> 00:00:43.030 comparisons, it's clear that organic died a long 00:00:43.030 --> 00:00:45.609 time ago. We are living inside a script. We are. 00:00:45.710 --> 00:00:49.359 And the script writer is a concept that is. Simultaneously, 00:00:49.359 --> 00:00:51.659 the most boring word in the English language 00:00:51.659 --> 00:00:54.679 and the most powerful force in your daily life. 00:00:54.840 --> 00:00:57.179 Zoning. Zoning. It sounds like the title of a 00:00:57.179 --> 00:00:59.420 spreadsheet that won't load. But our mission 00:00:59.420 --> 00:01:01.679 for this deep dive is to prove that zoning is 00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:04.099 actually the invisible hand that shapes everything. 00:01:04.299 --> 00:01:06.819 It decides who your neighbors are, how fat your 00:01:06.819 --> 00:01:10.049 wallet is, how much carbon you emit. This is 00:01:10.049 --> 00:01:12.250 the part that really surprised me. It might even 00:01:12.250 --> 00:01:14.689 determine the GDP of the entire country. It's 00:01:14.689 --> 00:01:16.549 the operating system of the built environment. 00:01:16.790 --> 00:01:18.950 Yeah. And like any operating system, when it's 00:01:18.950 --> 00:01:21.109 working, you don't notice it. Right. But when 00:01:21.109 --> 00:01:24.489 it crashes or when the code is bad, you get dysfunction. 00:01:24.750 --> 00:01:27.930 You get inequality. You get gridlock. So before 00:01:27.930 --> 00:01:29.969 we get into the heavy stuff, the segregation, 00:01:30.430 --> 00:01:34.030 the economics, the bagoom factories. We have 00:01:34.030 --> 00:01:36.230 to talk about the bagoom factories. We do. But 00:01:36.230 --> 00:01:39.170 first, we need to define our terms because I 00:01:39.170 --> 00:01:42.129 think a lot of people, myself included, conflate 00:01:42.129 --> 00:01:44.769 zoning with building codes. They seem like the 00:01:44.769 --> 00:01:47.269 same bureaucratic red tape. They are cousins, 00:01:47.450 --> 00:01:50.709 but they do very different jobs. I mean, think 00:01:50.709 --> 00:01:52.530 of a building code as the engineering manual. 00:01:52.650 --> 00:01:54.909 It tells you how to build. Okay. It says you 00:01:54.909 --> 00:01:58.069 need this much rebar in the concrete or you need 00:01:58.069 --> 00:02:00.709 a fire exit here or the wiring must be copper. 00:02:01.189 --> 00:02:03.670 It is purely about safety and structural integrity. 00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:06.459 If a building code fails, the roof falls on your 00:02:06.459 --> 00:02:09.280 head. Right. So building codes prevent gravity 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:11.919 and fire from killing me. Pretty straightforward. 00:02:12.300 --> 00:02:15.419 Exactly. Zoning, on the other hand, is about 00:02:15.419 --> 00:02:18.240 land use. It doesn't care if your wiring is up 00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:20.740 to code. It cares about what that building is 00:02:20.740 --> 00:02:23.219 doing and where it sits in relation to everyone 00:02:23.219 --> 00:02:25.360 else. So it's the social layer on top of the 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:27.180 engineering layer. That's a great way to put 00:02:27.180 --> 00:02:31.180 it. Zoning asks, is this a house? Is it a factory? 00:02:31.419 --> 00:02:34.969 Is it a park? How tall is it? How far back from 00:02:34.969 --> 00:02:38.150 the street is it? So building codes stop the 00:02:38.150 --> 00:02:40.610 house from burning down. Zoning stops me from 00:02:40.610 --> 00:02:43.210 turning that house into a slaughterhouse. Precisely. 00:02:43.270 --> 00:02:46.009 And that distinction is vital because zoning 00:02:46.009 --> 00:02:48.900 is a social tool. It's about the collective arrangement 00:02:48.900 --> 00:02:51.460 of the community. It's the rulebook that says 00:02:51.460 --> 00:02:54.080 these activities happen here and those activities 00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:55.860 happen there. And we have a lot of ground to 00:02:55.860 --> 00:02:58.099 cover today. We're basing this deep dive on a 00:02:58.099 --> 00:03:00.740 massive synthesis of sources, centering on the 00:03:00.740 --> 00:03:02.680 comprehensive history and mechanics of zoning 00:03:02.680 --> 00:03:05.500 from the Wikipedia archives, but pulling in economic 00:03:05.500 --> 00:03:08.620 studies and legal case law. It's a huge topic. 00:03:08.780 --> 00:03:11.039 It really is. We're going to look at the ancient 00:03:11.039 --> 00:03:13.800 origins, the dark side American zoning history, 00:03:13.939 --> 00:03:17.500 the toolkit planners use, and then... My favorite 00:03:17.500 --> 00:03:19.659 part, how the rest of the world does it completely 00:03:19.659 --> 00:03:21.639 differently. Oh, the international comparison 00:03:21.639 --> 00:03:24.319 is where you really see how arbitrary our American 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:28.090 system is. It's. it's really eye -opening so 00:03:28.090 --> 00:03:32.050 let's rewind way back i assume zoning was a 20th 00:03:32.050 --> 00:03:35.030 century invention i pictured it arriving with 00:03:35.030 --> 00:03:38.030 the model t4 and the skyscraper but the research 00:03:38.030 --> 00:03:40.949 suggests this impulse to separate things is much 00:03:40.949 --> 00:03:43.789 much older it's ancient as long as humans have 00:03:43.789 --> 00:03:45.409 been clustering together in cities we've had 00:03:45.409 --> 00:03:48.050 to deal with the bad neighbor problem if you 00:03:48.050 --> 00:03:50.650 look at the walled cities of antiquity zoning 00:03:50.650 --> 00:03:52.889 was dictated by the walls themselves. It was 00:03:52.889 --> 00:03:55.030 binary, inside versus outside. Simple as that. 00:03:55.129 --> 00:03:57.349 Basically, the logic wasn't about property values 00:03:57.349 --> 00:03:59.849 or traffic flow. It was primal. It was about 00:03:59.849 --> 00:04:02.889 noise and smell. The U factor. Right. Because 00:04:02.889 --> 00:04:06.129 in 1000 BC, industry wasn't a guy with a laptop. 00:04:06.370 --> 00:04:09.569 It was messy. It was visceral. Tanning leather 00:04:09.569 --> 00:04:13.949 involves soaking hides. in, you know, urine and 00:04:13.949 --> 00:04:16.930 lime. Brick firing creates massive amounts of 00:04:16.930 --> 00:04:19.649 smoke. Slaughtering animals is bloody and attracts 00:04:19.649 --> 00:04:22.290 pests. Not stuff you want next to the temple. 00:04:22.470 --> 00:04:25.329 Not at all. So in the Zhu dynasty in China, or 00:04:25.329 --> 00:04:28.230 the Vedic era in India, the rule was simple. 00:04:28.410 --> 00:04:31.709 The clean stuff, temples, palaces, homes, goes 00:04:31.709 --> 00:04:34.490 inside the walls. The dirty stuff, the tanneries, 00:04:34.529 --> 00:04:37.410 the kilns, the graveyards, goes outside. It's 00:04:37.410 --> 00:04:40.550 the original NMBism. Not in my walled city. You 00:04:40.550 --> 00:04:42.329 could absolutely say that. Yeah. The Roman military 00:04:42.329 --> 00:04:44.350 camps were another example. They were incredibly 00:04:44.350 --> 00:04:46.170 standardized. You could drop a Roman soldier 00:04:46.170 --> 00:04:48.850 into a camp in Britannia or Syria and he would 00:04:48.850 --> 00:04:50.850 know exactly where the hospital was, where the 00:04:50.850 --> 00:04:52.569 commander slept and where the horses were capped. 00:04:52.610 --> 00:04:54.970 That is zoning in its purest form organization 00:04:54.970 --> 00:04:57.529 for efficiency. OK, so for a few thousand years, 00:04:57.709 --> 00:05:00.750 the logic is clean versus dirty. But then we 00:05:00.750 --> 00:05:03.050 hit the Industrial Revolution and the definition 00:05:03.050 --> 00:05:06.370 of dirty changes. It gets bigger. It gets industrial. 00:05:06.509 --> 00:05:08.949 This is the pivotal moment. Before the Industrial 00:05:08.949 --> 00:05:11.910 Revolution, a lot of production was cottage industry. 00:05:12.189 --> 00:05:14.170 You might weave cloth in your living room. You 00:05:14.170 --> 00:05:16.790 might make shoes in your kitchen. Home and work 00:05:16.790 --> 00:05:19.029 were the same place. The original work from home. 00:05:19.189 --> 00:05:22.089 Exactly. But when you move to steam power and 00:05:22.089 --> 00:05:24.709 mass production, you can't have a Bessemer steel 00:05:24.709 --> 00:05:26.490 converter in your kitchen. It's just not going 00:05:26.490 --> 00:05:29.310 to fit. Right. Industry had to scale up, and 00:05:29.310 --> 00:05:31.670 it became dangerous. You had massive factories 00:05:31.670 --> 00:05:35.569 belching coal smoke, loud machinery. Toxic runoff. 00:05:35.649 --> 00:05:37.730 And initially in places like London or Manchester, 00:05:38.050 --> 00:05:40.529 these factories were jammed right next to the 00:05:40.529 --> 00:05:42.410 tenements where people lived. And it was a public 00:05:42.410 --> 00:05:44.769 health disaster. Cholera, respiratory disease, 00:05:44.990 --> 00:05:48.730 squalor. I mean, it was just horrific. This forced 00:05:48.730 --> 00:05:51.670 society to rethink the city. We realized we couldn't 00:05:51.670 --> 00:05:54.509 just let cities grow organically anymore. We 00:05:54.509 --> 00:05:56.870 needed to intervene. We needed to separate the 00:05:56.870 --> 00:05:59.370 housing from the smokestacks. This leads us to 00:05:59.370 --> 00:06:02.569 the Garden City. The notes mention Adelaide, 00:06:02.589 --> 00:06:05.230 Australia. Which seems like a weird place for 00:06:05.230 --> 00:06:07.410 urban planning history to start. It's actually 00:06:07.410 --> 00:06:11.050 a critical milestone. In 1836, Colonel William 00:06:11.050 --> 00:06:13.550 Light designed Adelaide. He didn't just lay out 00:06:13.550 --> 00:06:16.350 a grid. He created a city center and completely 00:06:16.350 --> 00:06:19.370 surrounded it with parklands. A green belt. A 00:06:19.370 --> 00:06:22.149 literal physical buffer of green space. And he 00:06:22.149 --> 00:06:25.089 said the suburbs go outside the green belt. He 00:06:25.089 --> 00:06:27.449 legally defined where the city stopped and nature 00:06:27.449 --> 00:06:30.560 began. This was revolutionary. And this catches 00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:33.019 on. It inspires a guy named Ebenezer Howard in 00:06:33.019 --> 00:06:36.040 the UK to start the garden city movement. He 00:06:36.040 --> 00:06:38.740 saw Adelaide and thought, that's it. He envisioned 00:06:38.740 --> 00:06:41.839 cities as these neat, concentric rings, public 00:06:41.839 --> 00:06:44.399 buildings in the middle, then parks, then housing, 00:06:44.540 --> 00:06:47.339 then agriculture on the outside. It sounds very 00:06:47.339 --> 00:06:50.439 utopian, very orderly. It was. And it gave us 00:06:50.439 --> 00:06:53.160 the visual template for the modern suburb. But 00:06:53.160 --> 00:06:54.980 while the British were dreaming of garden cities, 00:06:55.199 --> 00:06:57.259 the Americans were figuring out how to enforce 00:06:57.259 --> 00:06:59.620 this separation legally. And this is where the 00:06:59.620 --> 00:07:03.100 story gets complicated. Complicated and, frankly, 00:07:03.180 --> 00:07:05.139 a little dark. We need to talk about the American 00:07:05.139 --> 00:07:07.660 origin story of zoning. The standard textbook 00:07:07.660 --> 00:07:10.379 narrative points to New York City in 1916, right? 00:07:10.459 --> 00:07:12.660 The Equitable Building. That's the clean version 00:07:12.660 --> 00:07:15.560 of the story. The sanitized version. The Equitable 00:07:15.560 --> 00:07:18.300 Building was this massive skyscraper in lower 00:07:18.300 --> 00:07:20.459 Manhattan that went straight up from the sidewalk. 00:07:20.740 --> 00:07:24.079 A sheer cliff. No setbacks. None. It blocked 00:07:24.079 --> 00:07:26.459 the sun for acres. People were terrified that 00:07:26.459 --> 00:07:28.660 the city would become a dark... Windswept Canyon. 00:07:29.319 --> 00:07:33.500 So New York passed the 1916 zoning resolution 00:07:33.500 --> 00:07:36.899 to force buildings to step back. The wedding 00:07:36.899 --> 00:07:39.079 cake architecture you see in old skyscrapers. 00:07:39.079 --> 00:07:41.439 Right. Strictly about light and air. Very noble. 00:07:41.579 --> 00:07:44.100 It sounds like a good thing. It was. But if you 00:07:44.100 --> 00:07:46.519 dig deeper into legal history, the first true 00:07:46.519 --> 00:07:48.819 zoning ordinance in the U .S. wasn't in New York. 00:07:49.139 --> 00:07:53.000 It was in Modesto, California in 1885. And it 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:55.100 wasn't about skyscrapers. It was about laundries. 00:07:55.199 --> 00:07:57.399 Specifically, wash houses. The ordinance made 00:07:57.399 --> 00:07:59.500 it illegal to operate a laundry in certain areas 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:02.139 of the city. Now, on the surface, they argued 00:08:02.139 --> 00:08:04.199 it was about fire safety laundries, used wooden 00:08:04.199 --> 00:08:06.800 fires, chemicals, etc. It was a public nuisance 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:09.019 argument. But that wasn't the real reason. The 00:08:09.019 --> 00:08:10.759 historical record is very clear on the intent 00:08:10.759 --> 00:08:13.639 here. Who owned the laundries in 1885 California? 00:08:13.980 --> 00:08:16.800 Chinese immigrants. Almost exclusively. The ordinance 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:19.000 was designed to prevent Chinese business owners 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:21.920 from expanding into white neighborhoods. It was 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:25.180 a tool of segregation disguised as a safety regulation. 00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:27.379 That is a crucial distinction. We often assume 00:08:27.379 --> 00:08:29.560 regulations are these neutral, benevolent rules. 00:08:29.819 --> 00:08:33.320 But here, the very first tool in the zoning toolkit 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:37.379 was weaponized for exclusion. And the tension 00:08:37.379 --> 00:08:39.909 between safety and exclusion. never really goes 00:08:39.909 --> 00:08:42.450 away. It flows right into the big Supreme Court 00:08:42.450 --> 00:08:45.590 case that legitimized zoning nationwide. Village 00:08:45.590 --> 00:08:49.090 of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. in 1926. 00:08:49.429 --> 00:08:51.190 Euclid? That's why we call it Euclidean zoning. 00:08:51.370 --> 00:08:52.710 I always thought it was named after the geometry 00:08:52.710 --> 00:08:55.070 guy because of the squares on the map. A common 00:08:55.070 --> 00:08:57.490 mistake, but no, it's named after the town of 00:08:57.490 --> 00:09:00.009 Euclid, a suburb of Cleveland. Here's the setup. 00:09:00.429 --> 00:09:02.970 Ambler Realty owned a bunch of land. They wanted 00:09:02.970 --> 00:09:05.230 to build industry factories, maybe some shops. 00:09:05.370 --> 00:09:07.669 The highest and best use for their land, economically 00:09:07.669 --> 00:09:10.049 speaking. Absolutely. The village of Euclid said, 00:09:10.250 --> 00:09:13.889 no, we are zoning this for residential use only. 00:09:14.210 --> 00:09:17.409 Single family homes, to be precise. And Ambler 00:09:17.409 --> 00:09:20.149 sued, arguing that the city was effectively stealing 00:09:20.149 --> 00:09:23.190 their money. Industrial land is worth way more 00:09:23.190 --> 00:09:26.049 than residential land. By zoning it residential, 00:09:26.429 --> 00:09:29.370 the city destroyed the land's value. Exactly. 00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:32.320 They argued it was an unconstitutional taking 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:36.039 of property without just compensation. The Supreme 00:09:36.039 --> 00:09:38.899 Court had to decide. Does a municipality have 00:09:38.899 --> 00:09:41.299 the right to tell a private landowner you can't 00:09:41.299 --> 00:09:43.860 do that simply to maintain the character of the 00:09:43.860 --> 00:09:45.720 neighborhood? And the court said yes. It said 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:49.000 yes. Justice Sutherland wrote the opinion, and 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:51.100 he used a very specific and now very infamous 00:09:51.100 --> 00:09:54.519 analogy. He called apartment buildings in single 00:09:54.519 --> 00:09:58.539 -family neighborhoods parasites. Oof. Parasites. 00:09:58.539 --> 00:10:00.919 That's not subtle. Not at all. He argued that 00:10:00.919 --> 00:10:02.799 they block the sun, they bring noise, they interrupt 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:05.720 the peace. He literally wrote a nuisance, which 00:10:05.720 --> 00:10:07.980 should be restrained. This cemented the idea 00:10:07.980 --> 00:10:09.740 that single -family housing is the highest and 00:10:09.740 --> 00:10:11.940 purest use of land, and everything else, apartments, 00:10:12.059 --> 00:10:14.220 stores, factories, is a nuisance that needs to 00:10:14.220 --> 00:10:16.740 be kept away. So Euclid gave every town in America 00:10:16.740 --> 00:10:18.899 the green light to draw lines on a map and say, 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:21.919 houses here, stores there, factories way over 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:24.659 there. And that brings us to the dominant model 00:10:24.659 --> 00:10:28.559 we live with today. Euclidean zoning. Let's break 00:10:28.559 --> 00:10:30.600 down what Euclidean zoning actually feels like 00:10:30.600 --> 00:10:32.679 on the ground. Because we're so used to it, I 00:10:32.679 --> 00:10:34.659 don't think we realize how strange it is historically. 00:10:35.139 --> 00:10:37.580 It creates a landscape of extreme separation. 00:10:38.019 --> 00:10:41.200 In a Euclidean system, you have strict categories. 00:10:42.139 --> 00:10:44.899 Residential, commercial, industrial, and usually 00:10:44.899 --> 00:10:47.399 they are mutually exclusive. The color -coded 00:10:47.399 --> 00:10:50.240 maps, yellow for houses, red for stores, purple 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:53.740 for factories. Exactly. And if you were in R1, 00:10:53.960 --> 00:10:56.399 which is residential zone one, you can build 00:10:56.399 --> 00:10:58.980 a house. You cannot build a corner store. You 00:10:58.980 --> 00:11:00.899 cannot build a dentist's office. You cannot build 00:11:00.899 --> 00:11:03.879 a duplex. Just a single family detached house. 00:11:04.200 --> 00:11:06.480 This is why we have the donut city effect in 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:08.840 so many U .S. cities. The downtown business district 00:11:08.840 --> 00:11:11.460 empties out at 5 p .m. and the suburbs are empty 00:11:11.460 --> 00:11:14.879 at 11 a .m. It mandates a monoculture. It assumes 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:17.100 that a house and a loaf of bread are incompatible. 00:11:17.470 --> 00:11:19.409 To buy the bread, you must leave the residential 00:11:19.409 --> 00:11:22.750 zone, enter the transit corridor, the road, and 00:11:22.750 --> 00:11:24.990 go to the commercial zone. It effectively mandates 00:11:24.990 --> 00:11:28.070 the car. It makes the car a prerequisite for 00:11:28.070 --> 00:11:30.769 participation in society. If you can't drive, 00:11:30.990 --> 00:11:33.450 you are functionally excluded from large parts 00:11:33.450 --> 00:11:35.470 of the city. But not everyone bought into this, 00:11:35.529 --> 00:11:37.330 right? I mean, there had to be a backlash. And 00:11:37.330 --> 00:11:39.049 this is where we have to talk about Jane Jacob. 00:11:39.230 --> 00:11:41.570 The patron saint of the messy city. She hated 00:11:41.570 --> 00:11:44.769 this separation. She loathed it. In her book, 00:11:44.870 --> 00:11:46.769 The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 00:11:46.950 --> 00:11:49.570 which came out in 1961, she argued that this 00:11:49.570 --> 00:11:53.230 rational planning was actually killing the spirit 00:11:53.230 --> 00:11:55.789 of the city. It was creating something that looked 00:11:55.789 --> 00:11:58.470 nice on a map, but was terrible to live in. And 00:11:58.470 --> 00:12:01.250 her famous concept was eyes on the street. Eyes 00:12:01.250 --> 00:12:04.169 on the street. Unpack that for us. She observed 00:12:04.169 --> 00:12:07.129 that in her neighborhood, Greenwich Village in 00:12:07.129 --> 00:12:09.960 New York. It was safe and vibrant because it 00:12:09.960 --> 00:12:12.059 was mixed. You had apartments above shops. You 00:12:12.059 --> 00:12:14.860 had bars next to libraries. You had little workshops 00:12:14.860 --> 00:12:17.080 next to homes. There were always people around. 00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:20.379 Always. Because of that mix, the sidewalk was 00:12:20.379 --> 00:12:23.100 always active. The shopkeepers watched the street 00:12:23.100 --> 00:12:25.340 in the morning. The office workers watched it 00:12:25.340 --> 00:12:27.720 at lunch. The residents watched it in the afternoon. 00:12:28.019 --> 00:12:31.179 The bar patrons watched it at night. This natural 00:12:31.179 --> 00:12:34.000 surveillance kept the peace better than any police 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:36.919 force. Contrast that with a Euclidean suburb. 00:12:37.289 --> 00:12:40.370 If everyone leaves for work at 9am, the neighborhood 00:12:40.370 --> 00:12:43.809 is a ghost town. No eyes on the street, it's 00:12:43.809 --> 00:12:46.919 an invitation for crime, or just... Soul -crushing 00:12:46.919 --> 00:12:49.940 boredom. Exactly. She argued that by separating 00:12:49.940 --> 00:12:52.919 uses, we were creating dangerous, sterile environments. 00:12:53.460 --> 00:12:55.940 Her work laid the foundation for what we now 00:12:55.940 --> 00:12:59.799 call mixed -use zoning and new urbanism. Which 00:12:59.799 --> 00:13:01.419 is the attempt to put the toothpaste back in 00:13:01.419 --> 00:13:03.759 the tube, trying to recreate that small -town, 00:13:03.860 --> 00:13:05.779 Main Street feel where you can live above the 00:13:05.779 --> 00:13:08.399 bookstore. It's the antidote to Euclid. Mixed 00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:11.120 -use zoning explicitly permits and even encourages 00:13:11.120 --> 00:13:13.700 combining residential, commercial, and cultural 00:13:13.700 --> 00:13:16.559 uses in the same building or block. But zoning 00:13:16.559 --> 00:13:18.960 isn't just about use. The outline highlights 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:21.840 a shift towards form and performance. This seems 00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:24.500 a bit more abstract. It's a philosophical shift. 00:13:25.100 --> 00:13:27.860 Euclidean zoning asks, what happens inside the 00:13:27.860 --> 00:13:32.259 building? Is it a home? A store? A factory? Right. 00:13:32.440 --> 00:13:35.440 Form -based zoning asks, what does the building 00:13:35.440 --> 00:13:37.860 look like? How does it relate to the street and 00:13:37.860 --> 00:13:40.740 its neighbors? Wait, so form -based codes care 00:13:40.740 --> 00:13:42.899 about the container, not the contents? Correct. 00:13:43.039 --> 00:13:45.580 A form -based code might say, any building on 00:13:45.580 --> 00:13:47.940 this street must be four stories tall, built 00:13:47.940 --> 00:13:50.639 right up to the sidewalk, with 50 % of the ground 00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:53.120 floor being glass windows. And if I want to put 00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:55.779 a yoga studio in there, fine. A lawyer, fine. 00:13:56.019 --> 00:13:58.740 An apartment, fine. As long as it fits the physical 00:13:58.740 --> 00:14:01.080 rules? As long as the form respects the neighborhood 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:03.759 character. The goal is to create a pleasant, 00:14:03.919 --> 00:14:06.919 walkable public realm, and they believe the use 00:14:06.919 --> 00:14:09.240 will sort itself out. The classic example of 00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:11.240 this, though it predates the term, is Paris. 00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:14.259 Absolutely. Paris is incredibly uniform. That's 00:14:14.259 --> 00:14:16.279 why it's so beautiful. That uniformity is law. 00:14:16.860 --> 00:14:19.200 Paris has strict height limits and facade rules, 00:14:19.460 --> 00:14:21.679 largely thanks to Haussmann's renovations in 00:14:21.679 --> 00:14:23.820 the 19th century. They realized that if they 00:14:23.820 --> 00:14:26.120 allowed modern skyscrapers to pop up randomly, 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:28.480 it would destroy the Parisian feel. But they 00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:30.659 do have skyscrapers. I've seen pictures of that 00:14:30.659 --> 00:14:34.000 one big black tower. The Montparnasse Tower. 00:14:34.159 --> 00:14:38.059 Ah, the Tour Montparnasse. Built in 1973, it 00:14:38.059 --> 00:14:42.220 is a monolithic 210 -meter black skyscraper right 00:14:42.220 --> 00:14:45.059 in the middle of the low -rise city. It is almost 00:14:45.059 --> 00:14:47.960 universally hated by Parisians. It sticks out 00:14:47.960 --> 00:14:50.320 like a sore thumb. I've seen it. It really does. 00:14:50.659 --> 00:14:53.460 It was such a visual and architectural disaster 00:14:53.460 --> 00:14:56.460 for the skyline that two years later, the city 00:14:56.460 --> 00:14:59.120 banned buildings over seven stories in the center. 00:14:59.470 --> 00:15:01.950 They pushed all future high -rises out to a dedicated 00:15:01.950 --> 00:15:04.870 business district, La Défense. It's often said 00:15:04.870 --> 00:15:06.990 the best view in Paris is from the top of the 00:15:06.990 --> 00:15:09.110 Montparnasse Tower. Because it's the only place 00:15:09.110 --> 00:15:10.629 where you can't see the tower. That's brutal, 00:15:10.809 --> 00:15:13.730 but it proves the point. Bad form can ruin a 00:15:13.730 --> 00:15:16.259 city just as much as bad use. Then you have the 00:15:16.259 --> 00:15:18.779 third type, performance zoning or impact zoning. 00:15:18.980 --> 00:15:21.039 This is the most logical scientific approach. 00:15:21.259 --> 00:15:23.820 It says we don't care what you build or even 00:15:23.820 --> 00:15:25.679 what it looks like as long as it doesn't break 00:15:25.679 --> 00:15:27.639 the environment or overload the infrastructure. 00:15:27.980 --> 00:15:30.200 So instead of saying no factories, it says no 00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:34.100 noise above 50 decibels or no water runoff greater 00:15:34.100 --> 00:15:37.200 than X gallons per hour. Exactly. It uses a point 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:40.700 system. You manage your sewage. Points. You mitigate 00:15:40.700 --> 00:15:43.139 traffic. Points. You provide affordable housing. 00:15:43.379 --> 00:15:45.940 Points. If you get enough points. You get your 00:15:45.940 --> 00:15:49.200 permit. That sounds incredibly sensible. Why 00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:51.059 don't we do that everywhere? It seems so rational. 00:15:51.340 --> 00:15:53.419 Because it's a bureaucratic nightmare. Who measures 00:15:53.419 --> 00:15:56.419 the decibels? Who predicts the traffic? It requires 00:15:56.419 --> 00:15:59.019 a massive amount of technical study for every 00:15:59.019 --> 00:16:01.960 single project. It slows development to a crawl 00:16:01.960 --> 00:16:04.019 because every building becomes a science experiment. 00:16:04.340 --> 00:16:07.919 Ah, so it's logical but impractical at scale. 00:16:08.019 --> 00:16:10.740 For most cities, yes. It's just too complex and 00:16:10.740 --> 00:16:13.000 expensive to administer fairly. So we're stuck 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:15.480 with the simpler, blunter tools. Speaking of 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:18.059 tools, let's open up the zoning toolkit. Because 00:16:18.059 --> 00:16:20.539 as I read through the source material, I realized 00:16:20.539 --> 00:16:22.740 planners have come up with some very creative 00:16:22.740 --> 00:16:25.559 and sometimes shady ways to bend the rules. The 00:16:25.559 --> 00:16:27.700 mechanics of zoning. This is where the rubber 00:16:27.700 --> 00:16:29.940 meets the road. Let's start with incentive zoning. 00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:32.740 This feels like a negotiation. It is a transaction. 00:16:32.940 --> 00:16:36.340 It's a deal. The city says to a developer, the 00:16:36.340 --> 00:16:38.399 zoning map says you can only build 10 stories 00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:41.639 here. But if you build a public plaza at the 00:16:41.639 --> 00:16:44.909 bottom, or you include a daycare, Or you fix 00:16:44.909 --> 00:16:47.830 the subway station entrance. We'll let you build 00:16:47.830 --> 00:16:50.850 15 stories. They're selling the air. Critics 00:16:50.850 --> 00:16:52.509 would say they are selling the integrity of the 00:16:52.509 --> 00:16:55.330 plan. They are selling zoning rights. If the 00:16:55.330 --> 00:16:57.570 infrastructure can't handle a 15 -story building, 00:16:57.789 --> 00:16:59.830 why are you allowing it just because they built 00:16:59.830 --> 00:17:02.590 a plaza? But supporters would say what? Supporters 00:17:02.590 --> 00:17:04.470 say it's the only way to get private developers 00:17:04.470 --> 00:17:07.390 to pay for public goods in an era of tight city 00:17:07.390 --> 00:17:10.369 budgets. Then there's TDRs, transferable development 00:17:10.369 --> 00:17:13.640 rights. This concept blew my mind. It's like 00:17:13.640 --> 00:17:16.279 carbon credits, but for concrete. Yeah, it's 00:17:16.279 --> 00:17:19.359 fascinating. In the U .S. property system, owning 00:17:19.359 --> 00:17:22.319 land gives you a bundle of rights. One of those 00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:24.220 is the right to build up to the zoning limit. 00:17:24.599 --> 00:17:26.500 Let's say you own a historic theater. It's only 00:17:26.500 --> 00:17:29.299 two stories call. But the zoning allows for 40 00:17:29.299 --> 00:17:32.720 stories. So I have 38 stories of invisible skyscraper 00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:35.259 that I'm not using. Exactly. Yeah. And you can't 00:17:35.259 --> 00:17:36.819 use them because you can't tear down the historic 00:17:36.819 --> 00:17:40.410 theater. With TDRs. The city lets you sever those 00:17:40.410 --> 00:17:42.869 air rights from your land and sell them to the 00:17:42.869 --> 00:17:44.630 guy across the street. Hold on, let me get this 00:17:44.630 --> 00:17:47.509 straight. You can sell the air. You can sell 00:17:47.509 --> 00:17:49.269 the development potential. Yeah. The guy across 00:17:49.269 --> 00:17:51.710 the street, who is capped at 40 stories, buys 00:17:51.710 --> 00:17:55.529 your 38 stories and builds a 78 -story megatower. 00:17:55.650 --> 00:17:57.970 Yeah, I get paid. You get paid, which gives you 00:17:57.970 --> 00:18:00.329 the money to maintain the historic theater. He 00:18:00.329 --> 00:18:02.950 gets his tower, and the city keeps the same total 00:18:02.950 --> 00:18:05.490 density. It's just shifted from your lot to his. 00:18:05.670 --> 00:18:08.880 So it preserves landmarks? Or farmland. It's 00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:11.640 often used to save open space. Farmers in a rural 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:14.079 sending zone sell their development rights to 00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:17.160 developers in an urban receiving zone. The farm 00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:19.640 stays a farm forever. It's clever. But then we 00:18:19.640 --> 00:18:22.299 have the ugly tools, spot zoning. Spot zoning 00:18:22.299 --> 00:18:24.799 is the black sheep. This is when a city council 00:18:24.799 --> 00:18:27.359 takes one specific lot, maybe owned by a friend 00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:30.299 or a major donor, and changes the zoning just 00:18:30.299 --> 00:18:32.559 for that lot in a way that makes no sense with 00:18:32.559 --> 00:18:34.829 the surroundings. This is a quiet residential 00:18:34.829 --> 00:18:37.930 street, but this lot can be a 24 -hour gas station. 00:18:38.289 --> 00:18:42.029 Exactly. It's zoning for a single parcel that's 00:18:42.029 --> 00:18:44.950 inconsistent with the comprehensive plan. It's 00:18:44.950 --> 00:18:47.450 frequently overturned in court because it's arbitrary 00:18:47.450 --> 00:18:50.630 and looks like corruption. It violates the principle 00:18:50.630 --> 00:18:53.130 that zoning should be applied uniformly. And 00:18:53.130 --> 00:18:56.269 the most cynical one of all, fiscal zoning. This 00:18:56.269 --> 00:18:58.890 explains so much about American suburbia. This 00:18:58.890 --> 00:19:01.970 is the root of many evils. In the U .S., local 00:19:01.970 --> 00:19:04.410 municipalities are funded largely by property 00:19:04.410 --> 00:19:06.789 taxes, but they also have to pay for services. 00:19:07.349 --> 00:19:11.069 Schools, police, roads. And schools are expensive. 00:19:11.390 --> 00:19:13.549 Very expensive. So if you are a town planner, 00:19:13.769 --> 00:19:16.609 you do the math. A shopping mall pays huge property 00:19:16.609 --> 00:19:19.349 taxes and sends zero children to school. Pure 00:19:19.349 --> 00:19:22.339 profit. A rateable. Right. A big office park 00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:24.680 is another great rateable. A subdivision of starter 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:26.680 homes, on the other hand, brings in modest taxes 00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:29.279 but sends hundreds of kids to school. That's 00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:31.359 a financial loss for the town. So the town zones 00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:33.420 everything for commercial or light industrial 00:19:33.420 --> 00:19:35.940 and bans affordable housing just to balance the 00:19:35.940 --> 00:19:38.079 budget. They try to attract uses that generate 00:19:38.079 --> 00:19:41.420 taxes and repel uses that consume services. Exactly. 00:19:41.559 --> 00:19:44.700 They zone for rateables. taxable assets, and 00:19:44.700 --> 00:19:47.500 zone -out families. It's why you see huge office 00:19:47.500 --> 00:19:49.759 parks sitting empty while people can't find a 00:19:49.759 --> 00:19:52.380 place to live. The zoning map is being used as 00:19:52.380 --> 00:19:54.359 a budget spread feed. We've also got pattern 00:19:54.359 --> 00:19:56.759 zoning here in the toolkit, which seems a bit 00:19:56.759 --> 00:19:59.500 more hopeful. It is. This is a strategy to combat 00:19:59.500 --> 00:20:02.019 the housing shortage. Instead of a developer 00:20:02.019 --> 00:20:04.619 spending a fortune on custom architectural drawings 00:20:04.619 --> 00:20:08.119 that might get rejected, the city provides a 00:20:08.119 --> 00:20:11.059 pattern book. A menu. Like ordering a combo meal. 00:20:11.450 --> 00:20:14.430 a menu of pre -approved designs. Here are three 00:20:14.430 --> 00:20:16.869 styles of duplexes, two styles of fourplexes. 00:20:16.990 --> 00:20:19.589 If you choose one of these patterns, your permit 00:20:19.589 --> 00:20:22.369 is expedited. You skip the line. That makes a 00:20:22.369 --> 00:20:24.410 ton of sense for filling in the missing middle, 00:20:24.529 --> 00:20:26.509 those small apartment buildings that fit into 00:20:26.509 --> 00:20:28.930 neighborhoods but are usually illegal to build. 00:20:29.150 --> 00:20:31.410 It reduces the risk for builders and lowers the 00:20:31.410 --> 00:20:34.089 cost of housing. It's a return to how we used 00:20:34.089 --> 00:20:36.609 to build, like the Sears catalog homes of the 00:20:36.609 --> 00:20:39.549 early 1900s. Okay, so that's the U .S. toolkit. 00:20:40.569 --> 00:20:43.029 And honestly, it feels a bit depressing. It feels 00:20:43.029 --> 00:20:48.210 rigid and easily manipulated. But the most eye 00:20:48.210 --> 00:20:50.130 -opening part of this research was looking abroad. 00:20:50.809 --> 00:20:53.289 Because I assumed the whole world did it the 00:20:53.289 --> 00:20:55.589 Euclidean way. Oh, absolutely not. The U .S. 00:20:55.609 --> 00:20:57.369 is an outlier. If you want to see a completely 00:20:57.369 --> 00:20:59.170 different philosophy, you have to look at Japan. 00:20:59.509 --> 00:21:02.710 Tell me about Japan. Because Tokyo looks chaotic, 00:21:02.789 --> 00:21:05.430 but it functions incredibly well. Japan uses 00:21:05.430 --> 00:21:08.240 what we call inclusive zoning. In the U .S., 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:10.599 our zoning is exclusive. If it's residential, 00:21:10.819 --> 00:21:13.440 it's only residential. In Japan, they use maximum 00:21:13.440 --> 00:21:15.700 nuisance limits. What does that mean in practice? 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:18.059 It means that in a lower zone, you can almost 00:21:18.059 --> 00:21:21.019 always do the higher zone's activity. So in an 00:21:21.019 --> 00:21:23.220 industrial zone in Japan, you can build a factory, 00:21:23.359 --> 00:21:25.900 but you can also build a house. In a commercial 00:21:25.900 --> 00:21:27.640 zone, you can build a department store, but you 00:21:27.640 --> 00:21:30.160 can also build an apartment. Wait, so I can legally 00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:33.890 build a house next to a factory? Yes. The Japanese 00:21:33.890 --> 00:21:36.369 philosophy is, if you want to live next to a 00:21:36.369 --> 00:21:39.190 factory, that's your choice. We won't stop you. 00:21:40.009 --> 00:21:43.210 But the reverse is not true. You cannot build 00:21:43.210 --> 00:21:46.029 a factory in a low -rise residential zone. It's 00:21:46.029 --> 00:21:48.490 a one -way hierarchy of nuisance. That explains 00:21:48.490 --> 00:21:50.950 the texture of Japanese cities. You turn a corner 00:21:50.950 --> 00:21:53.609 and there's a quiet house next to a ramen shop 00:21:53.609 --> 00:21:55.910 next to a small workshop. It creates incredible 00:21:55.910 --> 00:21:58.869 density and convenience. It allows the city to 00:21:58.869 --> 00:22:01.690 evolve organically. If a neighborhood needs more 00:22:01.690 --> 00:22:04.839 shops, Houses can slowly convert to shops. In 00:22:04.839 --> 00:22:07.220 the U .S., that would require a massive legal 00:22:07.220 --> 00:22:10.140 battle to change the zoning map. In Japan, it 00:22:10.140 --> 00:22:12.059 just happens. And they don't have the same minimum 00:22:12.059 --> 00:22:14.440 pay power, right? The local homeowners can't 00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:17.039 block everything. No. Zoning is controlled at 00:22:17.039 --> 00:22:19.339 the national level in Japan. A local neighborhood 00:22:19.339 --> 00:22:21.640 in Tokyo can't just vote to ban apartment buildings 00:22:21.640 --> 00:22:23.440 because they don't like the look of them. The 00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:25.900 national government sets the standard. If it 00:22:25.900 --> 00:22:28.720 fits the box, you can build it. And they focus 00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:31.759 on form, too. Yes. They rely on sunshine laws. 00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:35.059 Heavily. Instead of worrying about use, they 00:22:35.059 --> 00:22:37.700 worry about light. The building envelope is shaped 00:22:37.700 --> 00:22:40.200 by angles to ensure that shadows don't perpetually 00:22:40.200 --> 00:22:42.900 cover the neighbor's property. It results in 00:22:42.900 --> 00:22:45.039 those interesting slanted roofs you see in anime 00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:48.039 or Tokyo photos. Contrast that with the UK. I 00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:50.000 was shocked to read that the UK doesn't have 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:52.980 zoning maps at all. Correct. The British system 00:22:52.980 --> 00:22:54.759 is discretionary. They don't have by -right development. 00:22:55.180 --> 00:22:58.119 By -right means if I follow the rules, I get 00:22:58.119 --> 00:23:01.140 the permit automatically. Yes. In the US or Japan, 00:23:01.420 --> 00:23:03.980 if the map says commercial and I draw a store 00:23:03.980 --> 00:23:06.319 that meets the code, the city must give me the 00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:09.619 permit. It's a right. In the UK, almost every 00:23:09.619 --> 00:23:12.380 development requires planning permission. You 00:23:12.380 --> 00:23:14.440 submit a proposal and the local council looks 00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:16.819 at it and says yes or no. Based on what? Based 00:23:16.819 --> 00:23:19.480 on a local plan and their own judgment. It's 00:23:19.480 --> 00:23:21.539 extremely subjective. It's a vibe check from 00:23:21.539 --> 00:23:23.880 the local council. A vibe check. Basically, it 00:23:23.880 --> 00:23:25.900 allows for all the community input, but it creates 00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:28.240 massive uncertainty. A builder never knows for 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:30.200 sure if they can build until the very end of 00:23:30.200 --> 00:23:32.740 the process. That must make housing incredibly 00:23:32.740 --> 00:23:35.420 expensive to build. The risk has to be priced 00:23:35.420 --> 00:23:37.819 in. It does. The supply of housing in the UK 00:23:37.819 --> 00:23:40.400 is strictly constrained by this process. And 00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:42.559 it's a huge political issue over there. Now, 00:23:42.599 --> 00:23:44.779 we have to talk about the anomaly. The city that 00:23:44.779 --> 00:23:46.720 always gets thrown around in libertarian arguments, 00:23:47.019 --> 00:23:51.940 Houston, Texas, the city with no zoning. A famous 00:23:51.940 --> 00:23:55.700 exception. Is it true? Is Houston a lawless wasteland 00:23:55.700 --> 00:23:57.819 where you can build a glee factory next to a 00:23:57.819 --> 00:24:02.329 kindergarten? Well, yes and no. It is true that 00:24:02.329 --> 00:24:04.569 Houston does not have a zoning ordinance. The 00:24:04.569 --> 00:24:06.869 voters have rejected it multiple times. There's 00:24:06.869 --> 00:24:09.549 no map that says commercial or residential. But 00:24:09.549 --> 00:24:13.230 the city is not unplanned. Houston relies heavily 00:24:13.230 --> 00:24:16.450 on private deed restrictions or covenants. When 00:24:16.450 --> 00:24:19.150 a developer subdivides land, they write rules 00:24:19.150 --> 00:24:22.150 into the property deeds. This land can only be 00:24:22.150 --> 00:24:25.349 used for single family homes or no business that 00:24:25.349 --> 00:24:27.269 sells alcohol. So the government doesn't ban 00:24:27.269 --> 00:24:30.200 the factory, the private contract. Bans the factory. 00:24:30.359 --> 00:24:33.099 It's private zoning. Exactly. And the city of 00:24:33.099 --> 00:24:36.140 Houston enforces those private contracts. Plus, 00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:39.019 they have parking requirements, lot size minimums 00:24:39.019 --> 00:24:41.440 and setback rules that act very much like zoning. 00:24:41.579 --> 00:24:43.960 So if you drive through Houston, it looks surprisingly 00:24:43.960 --> 00:24:47.200 like Dallas or Phoenix. The mechanism is different. 00:24:47.599 --> 00:24:50.619 Private law versus public law. But the outcome 00:24:50.619 --> 00:24:54.079 is often similar sprawl. One last global stop 00:24:54.079 --> 00:24:56.900 because I love the detail here. The Philippines. 00:24:57.720 --> 00:24:59.299 The Philippines is interesting because of how 00:24:59.299 --> 00:25:02.119 granular they get with industrial zones. They 00:25:02.119 --> 00:25:04.559 don't just say factory. They rank them by hazard 00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:06.559 and nuisance level. I have the list. Industrial 00:25:06.559 --> 00:25:09.539 one is non -polluting. It says biscuit factories, 00:25:09.859 --> 00:25:12.660 small watercraft. Harmless stuff. Things you 00:25:12.660 --> 00:25:14.480 probably wouldn't mind living near. Industrial 00:25:14.480 --> 00:25:17.019 two gets into polluting things. Canning plants, 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:19.240 textile mills. That's getting a bit smellier. 00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:21.789 And then industrial three. High polluting and 00:25:21.789 --> 00:25:24.910 hazardous. And the code specifically lists bagoon 00:25:24.910 --> 00:25:27.769 factories. Bagoon is that fermented fish paste, 00:25:27.890 --> 00:25:30.730 right? It's famously pungent. It's pungent. It's 00:25:30.730 --> 00:25:32.829 delicious. But you do not want to smell it being 00:25:32.829 --> 00:25:35.900 made 24 -7. I love that the zoning code explicitly 00:25:35.900 --> 00:25:38.839 acknowledges the smell of fermenting fish as 00:25:38.839 --> 00:25:41.799 a level three hazard. It shows how zoning adapts 00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:44.279 to the specific culture and economy of a place. 00:25:44.500 --> 00:25:47.460 Absolutely. It's a reminder that zoning is ultimately 00:25:47.460 --> 00:25:49.960 about how people live together without driving 00:25:49.960 --> 00:25:52.420 each other crazy. What's a nuisance in Manila 00:25:52.420 --> 00:25:54.859 might not be a nuisance in Munich. Okay, so we've 00:25:54.859 --> 00:25:57.400 seen the mechanics, the history, the global variations, 00:25:57.480 --> 00:26:00.470 but... We need to land the plane on why this 00:26:00.470 --> 00:26:02.210 matters to the listener right now, because we 00:26:02.210 --> 00:26:05.210 opened by saying zoning determines your commute, 00:26:05.390 --> 00:26:08.009 your wallet and your neighbors. Let's prove it. 00:26:08.109 --> 00:26:10.049 The consequences. This is where the academic 00:26:10.049 --> 00:26:12.349 literature gets really damning. Let's start with 00:26:12.349 --> 00:26:14.630 the wallet, the economics. There was a study 00:26:14.630 --> 00:26:17.549 in 2017, Shia Moretti, that made my jaw drop. 00:26:17.809 --> 00:26:20.069 The GDT study. It's a famous one. They looked 00:26:20.069 --> 00:26:21.970 at the U .S. economy and asked a simple question. 00:26:22.470 --> 00:26:24.569 How much growth are we losing because people 00:26:24.569 --> 00:26:27.140 can't move to where the jobs are? Right. The 00:26:27.140 --> 00:26:29.900 most productive places in America, New York, 00:26:29.960 --> 00:26:32.740 San Francisco, Boston are incredibly expensive. 00:26:33.099 --> 00:26:36.240 And they are expensive largely because zoning 00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:39.059 restricts the supply of housing. If you can't 00:26:39.059 --> 00:26:41.980 build apartments, rent goes up. It's simple supply 00:26:41.980 --> 00:26:45.359 and demand. If rent is high, a normal worker, 00:26:45.539 --> 00:26:48.140 a teacher, a mechanic, a nurse can't afford to 00:26:48.140 --> 00:26:50.880 move there for a better job. So they stay in 00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:53.279 a lower productivity area. And this study found. 00:26:53.519 --> 00:26:56.349 They estimated that if just three cities. New 00:26:56.349 --> 00:26:59.049 York, San Francisco and San Jose relaxed their 00:26:59.049 --> 00:27:01.589 zoning to be median level, not even Texas level, 00:27:01.650 --> 00:27:04.609 just average for a U .S. city. U .S. GDP would 00:27:04.609 --> 00:27:07.630 be 8 .9 percent higher. Almost 9 percent of GDP. 00:27:07.809 --> 00:27:10.369 That's that's trillions of dollars. Trillions 00:27:10.369 --> 00:27:12.809 of dollars of wealth that doesn't exist because 00:27:12.809 --> 00:27:14.730 we won't let people build apartments. Other estimates 00:27:14.730 --> 00:27:17.450 go up to 12 percent. It's a massive self -inflicted 00:27:17.450 --> 00:27:19.930 wound on the economy. We are locking labor out 00:27:19.930 --> 00:27:21.549 of the places where it could be most productive. 00:27:21.710 --> 00:27:24.869 Then there's the social cost. Segregation. We 00:27:24.869 --> 00:27:26.869 talked about Modesto and the laundries, but this 00:27:26.869 --> 00:27:29.690 isn't just 19th century history. No. Modern zoning 00:27:29.690 --> 00:27:32.509 is often called exclusionary zoning for a reason. 00:27:32.630 --> 00:27:35.589 Yeah. There's a very strong statistically significant 00:27:35.589 --> 00:27:38.289 correlation between strict density limits and 00:27:38.289 --> 00:27:40.650 racial segregation. Jonathan Rothwell and Douglas 00:27:40.650 --> 00:27:43.210 Massey did the big study on this. They did. They 00:27:43.210 --> 00:27:45.730 found that in areas where zoning only allows 00:27:45.730 --> 00:27:48.569 large lots and single family homes, you have 00:27:48.569 --> 00:27:51.269 significantly higher racial segregation, even 00:27:51.269 --> 00:27:53.769 after you control for other factors. The mechanism 00:27:53.769 --> 00:27:56.970 is simple. Large lots are expensive. If you ban 00:27:56.970 --> 00:27:59.690 small lots in apartments, you set a minimum price 00:27:59.690 --> 00:28:02.289 of entry for the neighborhood. And because of 00:28:02.289 --> 00:28:04.250 the history of the racial wealth gap in the U 00:28:04.250 --> 00:28:07.230 .S., setting a high price of entry effectively 00:28:07.230 --> 00:28:10.569 filters out minority populations. It's an economic 00:28:10.569 --> 00:28:12.890 wall that functions just like a racial wall, 00:28:13.049 --> 00:28:15.349 but it's legal under current law. And the homeowners 00:28:15.349 --> 00:28:17.990 defend this wall fiercely. It's what economists 00:28:17.990 --> 00:28:21.869 call the home voter hypothesis. Homeowners see 00:28:21.869 --> 00:28:24.269 their house as their main financial asset. They 00:28:24.269 --> 00:28:26.690 believe, often incorrectly, that apartments or 00:28:26.690 --> 00:28:28.970 density will lower their property value. So they 00:28:28.970 --> 00:28:31.069 show up to city council meetings and scream no 00:28:31.069 --> 00:28:34.869 at any proposed change. And enbyism. Not in my 00:28:34.869 --> 00:28:39.049 backyard. Enbyism. It's a cartel behavior. Existing 00:28:39.049 --> 00:28:41.269 residents collude to restrict supply to boost 00:28:41.269 --> 00:28:43.569 the value of their own asset at the expense of 00:28:43.569 --> 00:28:45.950 everyone else, particularly the young and those 00:28:45.950 --> 00:28:47.789 trying to move in for opportunity. And finally, 00:28:47.809 --> 00:28:50.769 there's the human cost, the sheer rigidity of 00:28:50.769 --> 00:28:53.950 it. The notes mention the Gloversville Free Methodist 00:28:53.950 --> 00:28:57.410 Church in New York. This story is just awful. 00:28:57.829 --> 00:29:00.890 This is a heartbreaking story from 2022. It was 00:29:00.890 --> 00:29:03.950 freezing, minus four degrees Fahrenheit, dangerously 00:29:03.950 --> 00:29:06.500 cold. The church wanted to open its doors to 00:29:06.500 --> 00:29:08.900 let the homeless sleep inside, just to keep them 00:29:08.900 --> 00:29:10.960 from freezing to death on the street. A basic 00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:14.299 act of charity, of human decency. And the city 00:29:14.299 --> 00:29:16.880 shut them down. Why? Because the church was in 00:29:16.880 --> 00:29:19.119 a zone that didn't allow homeless shelters. The 00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:20.880 zoning code didn't care that people might die. 00:29:21.059 --> 00:29:23.359 It only cared that the use didn't match the map. 00:29:23.619 --> 00:29:26.039 That's when you know the system is broken. When 00:29:26.039 --> 00:29:28.839 bureaucracy overrides basic humanity, it's the 00:29:28.839 --> 00:29:31.460 definition of a failed system. It illustrates 00:29:31.460 --> 00:29:33.900 the fundamental problem. Zoning is a tool for 00:29:33.900 --> 00:29:36.779 order. But it often lacks empathy. It lacks common 00:29:36.779 --> 00:29:39.480 sense. It's a blunt instrument. So we're left 00:29:39.480 --> 00:29:42.420 with this duality. Zoning saves us from the tannery 00:29:42.420 --> 00:29:44.900 next door. It stops the skyscraper from blocking 00:29:44.900 --> 00:29:48.000 our sun. But it also creates traffic, segregates 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:50.779 our cities and stifles the economy. It's a powerful 00:29:50.779 --> 00:29:54.380 tool that has been used bluntly. The shift we 00:29:54.380 --> 00:29:57.420 are seeing now toward mixed use, toward form 00:29:57.420 --> 00:29:59.579 -based codes, toward allowing missing middle 00:29:59.579 --> 00:30:02.539 housing is an admission that we overcorrected. 00:30:02.859 --> 00:30:05.220 We tried to turn the city into a machine, and 00:30:05.220 --> 00:30:07.160 we forgot it's supposed to be a habitat for humans. 00:30:07.339 --> 00:30:09.200 We're trying to find our way back to the organic 00:30:09.200 --> 00:30:11.259 city, but using a better rulebook this time. 00:30:11.380 --> 00:30:13.880 Exactly. A smarter, more flexible rulebook. Here's 00:30:13.880 --> 00:30:15.880 a final thought to leave you with. We started 00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:17.880 by saying zoning was invented for the Industrial 00:30:17.880 --> 00:30:20.380 Revolution to separate the dangerous factory 00:30:20.380 --> 00:30:23.960 from the peaceful home. Right. But today, most 00:30:23.960 --> 00:30:25.940 of us don't work in dangerous factories. We work 00:30:25.940 --> 00:30:28.140 in the knowledge economy. My factory fits in 00:30:28.140 --> 00:30:30.460 my backpack. It's a laptop. It makes no noise, 00:30:30.500 --> 00:30:33.220 no smoke. Precisely. So if the nuisance is gone, 00:30:33.380 --> 00:30:36.359 if work is clean and quiet, why are we still 00:30:36.359 --> 00:30:39.039 separating it from our homes? Are we living in 00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:42.420 cities designed for a 1920s reality that doesn't 00:30:42.420 --> 00:30:45.160 exist anymore? I think we are. And I think the 00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:47.500 cities that figure out how to reintegrate life 00:30:47.500 --> 00:30:49.819 and work like we used to have before the car, 00:30:49.940 --> 00:30:51.859 before Euclid, are going to be the winners of 00:30:51.859 --> 00:30:54.079 the 21st century. They'll be more affordable, 00:30:54.279 --> 00:30:56.759 more sustainable, and... Frankly, more interesting 00:30:56.759 --> 00:30:59.180 places to live. Something to mull over the next 00:30:59.180 --> 00:31:01.240 time you're stuck in traffic, driving past a 00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:04.000 strip mall. And do yourself a favor. Look up 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:06.779 your local zoning map. Yes. Google your town 00:31:06.779 --> 00:31:09.599 name plus zoning map. It's almost always online. 00:31:09.880 --> 00:31:12.000 Find your house. See what color is. Read the 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:14.119 code. You might be shocked to find out what you 00:31:14.119 --> 00:31:15.960 are and aren't allowed to do on your own land. 00:31:16.119 --> 00:31:18.960 It's an eye -opener. A real one. Thanks for listening 00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:21.000 to this deep dive. We'll catch you on the next 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:21.559 one. Goodbye.