Category Development

On Interfluidity, Steve Randy Waldman posted some criticisms of the market urbanist position. The post was interesting, though I took issue with a few specific points. The following are my responses. Regulatory Authority as a Property Right The customary property rights surrounding homeownership in many cities and suburbs include much more than the use of a square of earth and whatever is built on it. Existing homeowners bought into particular neighborhoods in large part because of their “character”, which includes nice-sounding things like walkability or “charm”, as well as not-so-nice-sounding things like access to exclusionary education. I don’t buy the idea that local control of zoning is a customary property right. A property right implies someone owns something in a definitive way and can make decisions as to the disposition of said something within whatever bounds are prescribed by law. Land use regulations don’t work that way. The relative influence over land use between two homeowners comes down to arbitrary factors like who’s more charismatic in the homeowner’s association or who shows up most frequently at planning meetings. However, if we were to make authority over land use more like a property right, I might actually like that. Ideas like Tax Increment Local Transfers, state taxes on the municipal use of zoning authority, and municipal corporations with residual claimants move us to a world where authority over land use actually looks like something that can be bought, sold, and taxed. I’m partial to the idea of deregulation, but if reform means creating a market in which we can pay off NIMBYs, I can get behind that too. The Normative Case Against Deregulation “Zoning reform” is an anodyne way to describe an expropriation of those customary rights. It amounts to diminishing residents’ ability to preserve or control the evolution of their neighborhoods, in […]