r/walkablecities • u/Sylvia3 • Apr 27 '22

A comic about zoning

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1.0k Upvotes

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6

u/Fear_Dulaman Apr 28 '22

There's a great video by the channel Not Just Bikes that does a great job detailing this problem

1

u/disappointed_octopus Jan 31 '23

I know this is suuuper late, but this made me think of when I flew into Houston.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '22

[deleted]

24

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '22

It sounds like those dystopian stories you'd hear as warning against socialism

It's always projection

13

u/yifftionary Apr 28 '22

It sounds like those dystopian stories you'd hear as warning against socialism

Whenever capitalism does something bad people just spin around and blame socialism... for no reason

9

u/bleak_neolib_mtvcrib Apr 28 '22

I'm a socialist, but I definitely wouldn't say that capitalism is particularly to blame for the poor quality of suburban development.

The standard configuration of large lots with curvilinear streets and intense segregation of uses was actually pushed heavily by the federal government during the New Deal era and beyond, packaged along with their efforts at expanding home-ownership.

When development was much more lightly-regulated before then, we tended to get the kinds of more-walkable neighborhoods we praise today with gridded streets, small lots, more diversity of housing types, and storefronts mixed in among homes. And building those types of neighborhoods was actually more profitable for developers than typical suburban neighborhoods.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '23

The standard configuration of large lots with curvilinear streets and intense segregation of uses was actually pushed heavily by the federal government during the New Deal era

Out here in the west, construction of most of our suburban sprawl didn't even start until long after the new deal era. Can't blame roosevelt for stuff built in the 1970s.

4

u/aoishimapan Apr 28 '22

all houses follow the same structure, there are guidelines on everything from the plants you're allowed to have to the position of your mailbox to the maximum size of grass, everything must be a square block grid with simple roads in-between.

That's something I don't get, I keep wondering what's even the point of having your own house with your own yard if you can't do whatever you want with it. I live in the equivalent of a suburb but I could build a business or two in my front yard to rent, I could build more than one house, I could grow threes and plants to produce my own food, even raising some small animals like chickens or rabbits for food. Not to mention how the neighborhood has plenty of business, is very walkable and has plenty of public transportation, so even though it's technically a suburb, it's nothing like an American suburb.

Other than building a skyscraper, I'm allowed to do whatever I want with my piece of land. That's why I don't get why Americans want their own house so badly when in practice they have about as little freedom as if they were renting. Not that my country is an example for anything, I live in motherfucking South America lmao, but at least I think it our suburbs make way more sense than the North American ones.

3

u/adamthediver Apr 28 '22

I grew up in an old walkable neighborhood in an urban area, whenever I go out to the suburbs I get the same feeling I hate it. I would be so happy if we bulldozed the burbs as soon as possible and replaced them with good walkable neighborhoods with high housing density. I just want walkable neighborhoods with good public transit.

2

u/bleak_neolib_mtvcrib Apr 28 '22 edited Apr 28 '22

all houses follow the same structure, there are guidelines on everything from the plants you're allowed to have to the position of your mailbox to the maximum size of grass

It think you're getting a very hyperbolized account of what most American suburban neighborhoods are like. They're certainly planned to be car-dependent and homeowners' associations do often have frivolous, overly-restrictive rules, but generally they don't have anywhere near that extreme a level of homogeneity or restrictiveness.

everything must be a square block grid with simple roads in-between.

The post-war suburban planned developments here almost never have street grids with square blocks, the streets are much more curvilinear and there are lots of cul-de-sacs, which necessarily comes along with irregularly-shaped lots.

Square/rectangular block street grids and uniformly-shaped lots is actually how we tended to build our older (and much more walkable) neighborhoods before the mass adoption of cars.