This article is not utopian, but it is possibly utopian-adjacent. I am not a utopian, libertarian won’t make everything perfect for everyone, but I think it will do a lot of good. But I am also a deontological libertarian, so do the right thing, and accept the results you get.
This article is designed to piss off two groups. First new urbanists, who want dense cities and cars banned and everything walkable and etc. Secondly, pro-suburb, pro-car libertarians. Lots of what I am going to discuss has been discussed on strongtowns.org (see notes at bottom of article), although not these specific ideas very often.
I am going to discuss some ideas for changes to our cities in a libertarian fashion and how that will upset the current structure and what the new equilibrium might look like. On this, I am just guessing, I want to do the right thing and then I will accept whatever the result is.
First, zoning, its got to go. There should be, at most, two zones. One for heavy industrial, things that are polluting, or loud, or dangerous. They get their own zone. The second zone is everything else. There are efforts moving in this direction, movements to allow upzoning and etc. I have seen supposed libertarians oppose some of these, mostly because of the people proposing them, but while they are far from perfect, they are a step in the right direction. Related to this, is a change in the law regarding HOAs. Florida used to have a law similar to what I am proposing, but lobbyists for builders got it removed. My version limits any deed restrictions to 25 years. When you buy a property, you should be buying the property, and while I can see some need for deed restrictions, they shouldn’t last in perpetuity. So a generation is a good limit. That would basically have all HOAs expire after 25 years. So if you want to build a Single Family Home neighborhood, you can, but 25 years from now if someone wants to convert a house into an apartment building or a pub or office space, or what-have-you, there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it. This, interestingly, counteracts some of those upzoning ordinances I talked about, but at the same time, makes them unnecessary, as you can upbuild all you want if you are past the end of the deed restriction.
Second, parking. Lots of places are getting rid of parking minimums. Few have parking maximums, and even some of those are going away (although the people that really hate parking minimums, love parking maximums). This isn’t the correct answer, at least not in full. Cities should be getting rid of these mandates, but they also should be divesting themselves of parking lots. City owned parking should be sold, let the market price for parking adjust. You don’t need minimum parking mandates, businesses will want enough parking, either they will provide, or make sure they are located near acceptable parking. The most controversial part of this would be cities divesting of street parking. Sell off that strip of land or return it to the property owner who borders it. It may or may not remain parking, but the city doesn’t have to deal with or maintain it anymore.
Third, infrastructure. For this I am talking about water/sewers/utilities/etc, not roads, that’s #4. Infrastructure needs to be charged appropriately. If we privatized all of these services, that would happen naturally, which is the best approach, but even with city-owned services, there can be changes. If a lot on the outskirts requires multiple pumping stations to get water to it, it should be charge a higher rate than a lot next to the water company. Maybe a private company wouldn’t do it that way, but until we privatize, infrastructure costs should be paid appropriately.
Fourth, roads and streets. First lets define them, I will use a modified definition from Strongtowns, because I don’t like their definition of streets. A road is a high speed connector between places. A street is a platform for destinations: houses, offices, stores, whatever. Streets should be slow, with cars, bikes, and pedestrians sharing the space. A road is for cars (and maybe bikes/pedestrians on rural roads) to get to somewhere else fast. Roads should have few access points, there shouldn’t be destinations along them (exception again for rural roads, but things like farm entrances should be well spaced out so that its still mostly true). In general, streets should be 25 mph or less, roads should be 55 mph or greater. There are some limited cases for “slow roads”, some 35-45 mph roads that are still roads, but shorter connections within cities. Generally though, they can be redesigned for 55 mph. Okay, that is all well and good, but how are we paying for these streets and roads. Roads are easy, they should all be tolled. Heck, they could be privatized. Streets are a little more difficult. I would turn “ownership” of streets over the local POA (Property Owners Association) where they exist, or a special taxing district could be created where they don’t (or where the 25 year deed restrictions have expired). The owners within the district take care of maintenance of the roads. They could handle the street-side parking I mentioned in #2. If they want to save money and go with gravel, they could. If an exclusive neighborhood so wished, they could pave their streets with gold.
There are plenty of other ideas, but you get the gist, and I think these are the most important.
Finally, I want to discuss what I think this does. What is the new equilibrium? Cities should look like normal curves, taller in the center and getting smaller as you go out to the edges. Lots of places have limited the heights in the city centers, so you get more spread and sprawl (I refuse to call sprawl a bad thing, but when it is the result of government policies, it is). So, city cores will get taller and more dense. “Hurray”, says the new urbanists! “Grumble, grumble,” says certain others around here. It is (or was?) standard practice that new neighborhoods on the edges of city start with septic tanks and as the city grows, they eventually get on city water. And think more of that will happen, if infrastructure is charges properly. Suburbs in general will get more expensive, which is why we get the city core getting denser. But they won’t go away. People want to have land and a lawn. And those that can afford it, will. And they will continue to drive places (although they may have a pub on their street!). I can already hear the complaints about the ubiquitous EZ pass that is going to have to exist in every car to pay for road driving. I do think, in general, places will be more walkable, but the urbanists are gonna be pissed about the people still zooming to big box stores in their cars. And with less traffic, probably, the driving will be more enjoyable. I made it to this point with mentioning the Single Land Tax, well, that will have to wait.
For further readings on these topics, I have two recommendations.
- Strongtowns.org – you can even see me sometimes as the lone voice for libertarianism in the comments section.
- “Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation” by Bryan Caplan, to be released May 1. I haven’t read it, obviously, but I know it will be good. Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Build-Baby-Science-Housing-Regulation/dp/1952223415/
For those confused by the title of this article, the first SF is short for San Francisco, the second is short for Science Fiction.
And a music link, because why not.
Question – when you privatize an existing municipal water supply – how do you address the monopoly issue where the purchaser of the existing network has the pipe in the ground and any potential competition has to argue with the paving district over digging new lines? From a practical standpoint it looks like you’ll end up with a situation asking to be abused and less recourse than we currently have.
Yep. That’s why I don’t complain about the distribution side of utilities being regulated – competition isn’t possible to ensure decent customer service and prevent abuse.
As Drake said, you probably cant (well, you can, it just might be ugly) the distribution side. It might have to remain a public utility. But the production side, say for electricity, can absolutely be privatized. Buy from whoever you want, DeliverCo doesn’t care, they just deliver down the lines.
There was deregulation on the supplier side in many states. I used to sign up for the cheapest coal and nuclear supplier available. Probably changes happening to take those choices away.
I let the power company run their lines underground on my property. Less maintenance for them, less visual eye sore for the neighbors and me.
Hopefully soon you will have mutant electric bunnies. They can zap intruders.
Given the comingling of product on the lines/in the pipes, I’d wager DeliverCo has to care – it’d be their responsibility to go after producers who weren’t putting enough into the system to cover their supposed customers downstream.
I think in places this has been implemented, DeliverCo buys from the power vendors, and there are serious contractural penalties if they dont provide the amount agreed upon. Some places in the UK have this, IIRC.
Buy from whoever you want, DeliverCo doesn’t care, they just deliver down the lines.
Assuming Generate4me has a grid connection to DeliverCo. Of course electricity on the grid is pretty damn fungible.
This article is designed to piss off two groups. First new urbanists, who want dense cities and cars banned and everything walkable and etc. Secondly, pro-suburb, pro-car libertarians.
What about people who rabidly despise planners? I feel left out.
This is the opposite of planning, there is no planning involved, so you can hate them all you want.
Really? How do you enforce the road/street distinction?
You probably cant. They distinction is a mess right now, with stroads that try to do both, and fail at both.
But, yeah, there technically is planning, in the sense of the way walmart plans. But not central planning, as the streets are being handled by small chunks and the roads either privatized with tolls or government with tolls.
Who handles the significant intercity links?
Either way. Private would be preferrable, but its handled pretty well today by the states (at least with Interstates). Throw some tolls up on them and get rid of the now unnecessary gas tax and done.
I too am in opposition to the planners/zoners. I have had to have zoning changes, with the fees that accompany that, wait times, rejected once but an appeal changed it to what I wanted but shouldn’t have had to even have to be rezoned.
I was at a local board meeting once where a woman asked me, in rebuttal, “How would you like a motorcycle repair shop move next door to you”?”
My answer was “I believe repair shops are in business to make money, they want visibility and traffic and cheap rent/land price”. That shut her up, sort of.
I had a neighbor living in a run down trailer house. When she moved I bought her property, 40 acres, cleaned up the mess. I use it for hunting and watching it appreciate. One day someone else will end up with that land, they can do what they please.
My former neighbor was running his motorcycle repair shop out of his garage. He was kind of a jackass, but the business itself wasn’t a problem.
Fuck that. I don’t want someone to be able to put a Dunkin Donuts or a methadone clinic next door to me.
Did you put in an offer for the lot?
I bought into a residential zone, with HOA controlled land. I shouldn’t need to.
So, no, you did not.
That’s not your property, on what grounds do you get to force the owners to keep it within the unholy covenant?
They agreed to the terms when purchasing, same as me.
No contract should be a perpetuity.
How does that affect property rights? Does my home ownership expire after 25 years?
It expires when you die, so maybe?
The ownership would be transferred to heirs/estate. It wouldn’t revert to “un-owned”.
So, what do you do when the rest of the HOA votes to dissolve?
The contract is not a property right in their land, and can go away without compensation.
Very well. If I decide to make a 36 story skyscraper shaped like a penis next door to your house, you must deal with it. This is the law in the new world.
It is a difficult thing to figure out property rights. To Sean’s point, you can hold fast for a while with initial contract terms, but eventually someone could come along, buy the land and build Phallus Towers next to your humble home. Contract terms defining what you could build would not be transferable unless the next owners agreed to them. And if the builder has very deep pockets, those contract terms get tossed out the window.
Privatized zoning would be an interesting concept to explore. How would that work?
Privatized zoning would be an interesting concept to explore. How would that work?
It’s called H O A
The first thing that comes to mind for “private zoning” would be a holding company that buys a very large area, and leases out the lots under particular terms of use.
Is it though? I have heard stories of HOAs having powers that private citizens can’t. I was told it was “legitimized” using the authority of the county government.
Just as long as you don’t need me to give access to my property during or after construction. Out of curiosity, who are the tenants for this new building? Surely it must make economic sense to build next to me. Otherwise, it’s already been done
If I decide to make a 36 story skyscraper shaped like a penis next door to your house, you must deal with it.
If by “deal with it, you mean build this” then absolutely.
This is so very close. It’s even made of pink veiny marble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Dallas_Hotel
A friend near San Antonio build a dome house (had it built). Found that there wasn’t much interest in buyers when he got divorced. Tough to sell some things.
I’ll take a Dunkin Methadone Drive-Thru over dealing with an HOA.
Then buy the lot next door. Problem solved.
If you don’t own it, it aint yours to control.
I can see the legitimacy of contracts agreeing to limit property use. However, perpetual contracts are stupid (see also: Disney). If the HOA isn’t time-limited, the use-limitation should break when the party who entered into the contract no longer owns the property.
That is why I thought the 25 year limit was a reasonable position. Its kind of like a patent or a copyright, its not really natural law*, but whatever, we can deal with it.
*And while my position is I oppose patent and copyright because they oppose natural law, I don’t think there is a natural law property right, but that starts us down the SLT rabbithole that I managed to avoid…this time.
Yeah, but now you’re limiting voluntary association. I want the stability, for the duration of my ownership. Why do you get to tell me my choice is wrong?
I would be fine with setting the limit for the duration of ownership of all members of the HOA. If anyone sells, the contract dissolves.
We’re not. You can make these agreements with your neighbors, you can’t dead-hand people you haven’t met yet.
I like the 25 year limit best, but another option is to acknowledge that the person who sells a property with a deed restriction continues to own that chunk of the property. And thus should be paying a portion of the property tax. I didnt bring it up because that way lies an SLT discussion, and the article was long enough.
I used to be an absolutist on this, too. Then a couple of years ago a construction company bought the corn field across the highway from my house and got the township to rezone it as Industrial use (said highway is on the border between two townships so they didn’t need to notify the 30 households on my side of the highway). Now there’s a fucking rail car repair warehouse next door. BNSF loves to drop off/pick up rail cars at 4:00 a.m. Even if I, or my neighbors and I, had the money to buy the lot, we knew nothing about the deal until they broke ground and it was too late. Tough shit for us when we try to sell some day, I guess.
Needless to say, my stoicism has been tested a lot.
The problem was not the re-zoning, it was zoning in the first place
I’d be fine with deed restrictions expiring, as long as they could be renewed with a majority vote of the people effected. Sean is right, the vast majority of people buying a home in these neighborhoods don’t want people to be able to build whatever they want next to them.
No.
People who want to create a new unholy covenant should be able to opt-in, but not be able to force those who want to remove their land from it to remain trapped.
The vast majority of people don’t hold libertarian views.
Unanimous vote, not majority.
It doenst have to be unanimous, just anyone who opts out after 25 years cant be forced back in. Which is basically the original proposal again, after that period, I can do as I damn well please with my land.
Fuck those people. They are the problem.
Always a great way to persuade them to your view, see e.g. leftists.
Am I trying to be persuasive? Is that my goal?
Well I suppose the other option is to liquidate them. See again, leftists.
I don’t understand. What problem are you solving? Seems like being able to build a commercial building in the middle of a residential neighborhood where most people don’t want that would cause a lot more problems than it would solve.
Houston says “Hold mah beer!”
1. Zoning is an abomination
2. Subsidies of suburbs. All subsidies…Im a purist.
3. And a more non-libertarian problem, neighborhoods need to evolve. Cities are stronger when properties can adjust with changes. See the headline, San Francisco should look like Manhattan. SF housing problems and prices is easy to fix. End zoning, make building easy, unleash the bulldozers, and wait 25 years. There wont be a housing shortage in the bay area.
If only there was a mechanism that allowed people to assign a value to their property that had to be met in order for them to cede their control of that property.
Cities are stronger
And this is good, why?
See: Detroit.
While you still can…
…but the ambiance…
Small towns with farming or mining tend to change as the technology has changed. At first not for the better as the stores close, kids move away after high school and towns end up with junk shops and retired people. If they are close enough to a big city/traffic hub they regenerate and new people move in, Dollar General, restaurants and a big box grocery soon appear.
https://cdn.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/ILSR-Report-The-Dollar-Store-Invasion-2023.pdf
^if you want to read about Dollar Stores
Interesting paper.
The conclusion makes me groan “The Federal Government should do something!” but still interesting to read about how sinister Dollar Stores are.
Overly restrictive zoning can be a problem, not sure what that has to do with deed restrictions, though. And what subsidies? I guarantee my deed restricted neighborhood is carrying its own weight and then some. The developers (and therefore the original buyers) had to pay for all the roads and infrastructure.
Nice meaty article. Thanks for writing.
I have learned a lot of different people through my hockey team. I have teammates who live in the suburbs like me, and some that live in the city. Some people want a lawn and space, other people are perfectly happy in a high rise where they can walk (or roll 🙂 ) everywhere and not have to deal with taking care of property. The problem I have is with those who want to force one way on everyone.
But fairness means everything is the same for everybody!
Yup. I was probably one of the former a few decades ago. (Fun fact: I almost went to college for city planning. 😨)
My preferences have not changed a bit but I’ve soured on the government having any part in it.
Suburbs are not free market though. They are heavily subsidized.
Hence my suggestions. The new equilibrium is the most interesting part to me. I dont know what it would be, and the transition would be fun. And chaotic.
We’re on the same page, except you forgot to eliminate Federal bureaucracies (Transportation and Education at least).
Serious question:
How are suburbs subsidized?
Had the same question. Now that the dentist has confirmed my suspicion that I have an abcess in my remaining wisdom tooth (I am considering WV as a possible escape from NJ) and the first dose of Vicodin has kicked in, I have a few random thoughts.
The first thing that comes to mind is the cost of commuting. All modes of transportation (rail, bus, automobile) are heavily subsidized. The cost of commuting tends to increase with the distance involved.
The second thing is… I got nothin’. Vicodin is wonderful.
The article I linked is mostly about the FHA, but yes highway subsidies lower the perceived cost of building a dispersed city. We get a lot of new infrastructure which is going to require more to maintain.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/we-have-always-subsidized-suburbia/
Thanks!
That left out infrastructure. As I mentioned, pumping water out to the burbs is more expensive but is rarely charged more. Roads are another major way. There is lots of subsidization going on.
Lots in cities too, and just want to be clear, I want those ended also. No subsided mass transit. Let a new equilibrium form.
Are you sure about that? That’s not true for Chicago or NYC (which gets its water from upstate NY so technically they are subsidized by upstate communities).
I think that’s an extremely generalized statement.
If you’re not looking at the audited financials, I think these generalized statements are very unhelpful
Yup. If only to find out what people actually want.
Street cars were built by real-estate developers. Free market!
Big auto came along, bought up the street cars and ripped out the lines. At some point the highway lobby was born. Private transit is now publicly funded highways.
Subway lines in NYC and Chicago were originally private (although most of them got government approved rights of way over existing property owners) and then seized by government, true. But, subways and public transportation doesn’t make sense in most cities.
I learned yesterday that Chile once had private city bus lines that ran a profit. One of the leftist governments nationalized and immediately went from a $6MM per year profit to $60MM loss. With worse service. Serving fewer people.
I saw that movie.
Quite funny.
I don’t think it is funny that giant auto corporations are corporate welfare whores.
Seriously
Is that a rabbit in your pocket?
Lol, ahhh. Haven’t seen it in awhile but now I might to see if the kids like it.
Does Manhattan have enough terrain to look like SF? Were all the hills dug out to make skyscraper basements?
FWIW Manhattan was originally very hilly. They flattened all the land north of Wall Street to about Harlem.
I grew up in northern Manhattan (Washington Heights, a few blocks from the George Washington Bridge). The IRT subway stations between 168th St. and 191st St. are so far underground that they can only be accessed by elevator. Next station to the north is Dyckman St. (200th St.) and at this point the track is a typical NYC elevated structure, having emerged from the tunnel without much of an uphill grade. There is a street called Ft. George Hill which snakes down from 193rd St. to Dyckman St., a sledding hill used only by the most daring among us (not me, nosiree).
Near The Cloisters? That area is amazing – I would call it more must-see than any of the usual tourist traps.
Pretty close – Cloisters is on the west side, end of Riverside Drive. I grew up on the other side, between St. Nicholas (aka Juan Pablo Duarte Boulevard, a sop to the Dominicans who now occupy the neighborhood) and Audubon Avenues.
The 2nd SF stands for Science Fiction. I take this to mean that Robc wants to shoot Manhattan into space.
Good start.
I was thinking Blade Runner, hence the image on the main page.
I actually owned that book…I think it was called “Manhattan Transfer”. The aliens scooped up the city and put it in a bubble and shot it into space. Other than that, the book was entirely forgettable. I never reread it, I don’t remember any characters, or the plot, or the conclusion.
Manhattan:1999. Starring Martin Landau and Barbra Bain!
Helena: It’s my life. If it ends on Manhattan or somewhere out in space, what difference does it make?
Koenig: It makes a difference. To me.
The demand is certainly there – otherwise you wouldn’t see the rent is too damn high in NYC and SF. Yes it will always be high but the too-damn part is a direct result of decades of government policies ensuring it.
I do love walking through cities — on vacation. I don’t know if it would get old were I to live there. I do notice that the cities that come to mind about being pleasant to walk through all have similar climates. You will never make Houston walkable no matter how much parking you eliminate.
And I love walking in the woods. Looks like we both win.
The only reason I still live here is the walking-in-the-woods lifestyle.
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/trail-scaled.jpg
Ha true dat.
This article does have me thinking more about “walkability”.
Everyone thinks NYC is super-walkable. Well… yes and no. The “no” – esp. outside Manhattan – is why I left after 25 years. For example, there were hundreds of shitty bodegas within an easy walk but not a single decent grocery store. So walkability is about more than just cramming shit together.
If I’m doing a serious grocery run, I don’t want to walk and haul my groceries back. I don’t want my perishables to heat up in the meantime, etc, etc. I’d have to be practically next door to the grocery before walking became feasible.
I do have that. It’s a fifteen minute walk. Quite nice. But carrying home a ton of groceries in bags is not great.
I learned that the hard way walking to the neighborhood farmers’ market years ago. Finally bought myself one of those collapsible rolling carts.
Now I just drive…if I go at all. 🙄
I had assumed a use of the rolling cart, so I didn’t harp on weight or bulk.
Though I really would rather not drag one of those down the sidewalk either.
If I can I ride my bike with a trailer. Almost more trouble than it is worth when I can just take a car.
I use a cart. Shop once a week and it fits everything I need.
All of my arguments are suitable only for a single like myself, FWIW. If I had kids or something, forget about it.
make Houston walkable
Air conditioned tubes… everywhere!
Good Lord. The humidity in Houston at times would make it unwalkable during some times of the year.
Astrodome the entire city! It can be powered by covering the surface with solar panels!
*hold out hand for feasibility study grant*
Pfshah – feasibility/shmeasibility, why should that matter. You have seen the future, and it works.
Houston doesn’t have zoning, but it still has plenty of land use regulations including mandatory lot size and parking minimums.
STEVE SMITH WANT GREEN BELT. MANY GREEN BELT AND PARKS. WANT HALP HIKERS AND GAMBOL ABOUT ALL CASCADIA.
I’ve got a bar on my street. Ok, technically it’s on the corner of my street and a cross street, but it’s still a bar.
There’s a pizza place around the corner that serves beer. Does that count?
Do they have seats and can you drink there? And even then, is it a place you’d want to sit and drink? I mean, Chipotle offers beer and margaritas, but I don’t know of anyone who decides to go to Chipotle to throw back some drinks.
They have seats and a jukebox. Never seen many people doing serious drinking there since they close at 8pm.
My favorite eateries in Austin were based in houses in residential areas.
https://www.foodheads.com/location/foodheads/
I was going to link Salvation Pizza, but it seems to have moved to a commercial district. Booo!
You mean something like this?
The turning lane make it look a little too downtown-y
Foodheads neighborhood.
However, those sorts of neighborhoods do exist in Austin (note Antonelli’s cheese shop)
It’s not a downtown area at all. Large inner ring CLE suburb, that’s one of the main E/W streets through the suburb. The city is a mix of older homes (mainly converted to duplexes), apartment buildings, and a condos. Quite a few areas where it’s houses and then shops.
Barroco has since expanded to two other locations (both in more… standard… locations) and opened a speakeasy styled bar behind the main restaurant (went to the restaurant a lot when I lived down the street from it, still need to hit up the cocktail bar).
We’ve got similar places through most of the inner ring suburbs, it’s when you get out a little more you start seeing the starker divides between residential and commercial.
One of my favorites in Louisville was in a walk-in basement in a house, smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood. It had been a bar for decades and had been grandfathered in when zoning came in (the neighborhood was an old one).
Hammerheads — It was formerly a bar called Swan Dive (its on Swan St).
If you want to get angry, read this bill. Even the title is unconstitutional. Won’t get out of committee in the Congress, but it reveals what they think of you.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6981/text/ih?overview=closed&format=xml
a special taxing district
That’s even worse than a perpetual HOA.
Someone has to pay for the streets. I figure a neighborhood or a few blocks of a business street can decide on maintaining the street they own together.
I do like the image of cruising down Main street in some town and suddenly it becomes gravel for a few blocks before turning back into pavement again.
In a business district, the owners are going to want nice pavement, with diagonal parking and etc. And willing to pay for it.
A cul-de-sac of single family homes seriously might be gravel. Or the cheapest pavement they can find.
You would probably have to go to the precinct level or the like as a stopgap. There are precinct level elections here for bars/stores that want to change their liquor licenses to a more permissive one.
I would like to get each district/POA down under Dunbar’s Number whenever possible.
If you want to get angry, read this bill.
I’ll pass.
the Single Land Tax, well, that will have to wait
You shameless tease.
When I was in Denver recently, we were at a rink that was in one of those planned neighborhoods with apartments and shops and everything within walking distance. We all got confused because this was a different rink from last year, but the surrounding neighborhood looked identical. But I can see the appeal for some people.
There’s a couple of places like that (Pinecrest, Crocker Park, Legacy Village) in the suburbs of Cleveland, they generally get referred to as if they were just malls when talking about them. They also seem to be following the fate of malls, as the oldest is already starting to get more vacancies as businesses close.
but the surrounding neighborhood looked identical.
This is how drunks come home and get shot by the person on the next block over when they break into the wrong house.
“Fuckin’ key don’t work…”
Happened locally here with a row of identical apartments.
Will you be downstairs with your shop vac?
I love it when planners try to create a new version of a model which arose organically in a planning vacuum. Little Disney-fied olde townes are what we need.
Disney’s main street is based on Fort Collins old town.
I live in a rural development with an HOA. I’ve been in the house 18 years and the development existed for several years before I bought. The HOA agreement must be close to expiring. As I recall, there is an automatic renewal clause in the agreement. I think it takes a majority or even supermajority to stop it from renewing.
Lead the charge and get it killed.
HOAs are an abomination.
Amazingly, you and I are on the same page today. Feels weird. And dirty.
Avoiding the dirt is what the gloves are for.
I don’t want to.
We have a remarkably light weight agreement. The well system is owned by the association. There are two chunk of common area owned by the association. There are few restrictions — you can’t turn your property into a livestock lot and you can’t turn it into a noisy business. I’m OK with those restrictions.
These anarchists want to remove our ability to make decisions and agree to terms that we found acceptable.
Here in rural Iowa, a majority of the property in the area is not covered by a restrictive deed. So choosing to buy into an HOA is a conscious decision. I am aware that in the growing metropolitan areas, vast quantities of properties are covered by extremely restrictive HOAs. So, one is limited to finding the least evil HOA. The answer to that problem, in my opinion, is to move someplace else.
Same. The majority of my contribution goes to maintaining a community pool and mowing the lawn/maintaining landscapes on everyone’s house. I am all for that. No use restrictions I can protest.
mowing the lawn/maintaining landscapes on everyone’s house
We don’t have that. My monthly fee is 25 bucks to cover the electricity to run the community wells and the four street lights in the development. It also covers the insurance for the two common areas.
There are no other services provide by the HOA.
Apparently HOAs mean different things in different parts of the country. In TX they do seem to be solely about restricting what kind of paint color and landscaping you can have. The bigger ones also build a clubhouse and pool.
Here, they seem mainly to be about contracting for snow removal.
People seem to believe that all HOAs, every single one, are just like the ones so bad that they make the news.
I live in an HOA. I like it. I prefer that the lots and houses in my neighborhood fall within the guidelines that I signed up for. I’ve never asked permission to plant anything. Granted, I did ask my neighbor on the HOA board about repainting the house – he looked at the samples and said “Sure, no problem”. That’s a burden I’m willing to bear.
As we shopped for houses, HOAs were a huge demerit.
I’m planting 8 fruit trees this weekend and didn’t ask anyone’s permission.
My old neighborhood had an HOA but it wasn’t bad. About $40/month but we got a pool, tennis courts and a park with a playground. Most neighbors didn’t get into each other’s business so the HOA wasn’t used for petty BS. But I think ours was the exception to the rule.
Not long ago, I read about some city experimenting with demand-based parking fees. Price discrimination for high demand times of day will solve our congestion problems. Of course, this requires universal participation in something equivalent to an EZ pass. Genius.
That sounds nice, but in practice it would be mostly indistinguishable from a purely random pricing model. You just get a big nasty surprise at the end of the month. And what do you do with out of towners? Robot tow trucks, I guess.
And what do you do with out of towners?
STEVE HAVE SOLUTION.
Was expecting “We Built This City.” (Not linking to it because I’m not a monster.)
It turned out Rock and Roll was not a very stable foundation material and the city had to be rebuilt.
/looks around.
It’s just as stable as salt mines.
If I had thought of it…I might have been that cruel.
Mine wasn’t as quite on topic, but I figure close enough. Plus there is no such thing as too much Tull.
“I don’t want [industry X] right next to me.”
You know what I don’t want? BARKING DOGS. I go outside and there are dogs barking, all day, every day. I fucking hate them.
Dogs are good, but they also need walked. When I walk my dog I hear dogs barking all around us but I never see these dogs on a leash being walked by their owners.
Mine gets a couple of miles walking a day, pus whatever wrestle time other dogs are willing to give. She still guards my property with great vigilance and vocalizations.
Mine too, but he doesn’t bark at people/other dogs who walk by that he’s met before.
Unfortunately she will bark at strangers, but also at friends that aren’t coming over to give her attention.
The problem with cities has more to do with the fact that families do not want to live in them more than ever. It’s not a coincidence that the City with feces on its streets is also the most childless city in America. No one says anything bad about Fort Worth and its population continues to grow (the city with the largest number of families with children). These cities are dying because families are only disadvantaged by moving to them. I’m not sure reforming urban planning will save anything. Although, new urbanism did screw these cities over hard core by insisting that they focus on accommodating cash rich, but without property or children, people over families.
Not even immigrants move to these cities any more because there are no good jobs with no skills. No one is moving across the world to go be a bar back. Manufacturing is in the South now and it remains a population magnet.
Also, most water and sewer services are already quasi-private (in rural areas a lot of them are outright private) and they are usually managed well. CA is the exception, which is due to multiple factors but incompetence cannot be discounted. Consider that Albuquerque, NM has never instituted forced water restrictions in a desert, while southern CA routinely has forces water restrictions. Albuquerque recycles water and uses desalination. CA does very little, if at all, any of those things
Where does New Mexico get salinated water? Are there brakish or saltwater lakes in the state?
I don’t know the specifics, but they are expanding their desalination with a recent agreement they reached with Mexico.
https://apnews.com/article/business-new-mexico-hobbs-aquifers-desalination-784bff80dc61bdacedaa61c306d4677d
They’ve doing it for a long time, since the 1990s.
Urban planning really begins with the CAFR
Brackish aquifer apparently.
LOL NYC would like a word.
Kansas is all in!
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/the-american-city-with-a-message-for-migrants-we-want-you-69ef7049?st=h92sfdir7cv9hgf&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Who could imagine that they would freak out in Kansas?
I’m sure there are plenty of places that would love to have an influx of population even including foreign nationals that immigrated legally.
I can’t imagine that lots of places want a flood of illegal immigrants at this point.
OK, then.
You’re from NYC, rhywun, you must admit that many immigrant areas a no longer immigrants. This has been a long-term process and statistically it is true that NYC, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco have a substantially smaller popular of immigrants today than they did in 1990.
And it makes sense. What would attract low skilled immigrants there now? Certainly not jobs
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/americas-immigrants-are-moving-to-the-suburbs/431748/
The foreign-born population rose from 28 to 36 percent between 1990 and 2000 (nyc.gov). In 2020 it was around 35% (Wikipedia).
And that’s surely not including illegals which has dramatically risen since around 2020.
Right now, it’s free shit.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/
FTA: “In terms of regions, about two-thirds of immigrants lived in the West (34%) and South (34%). Roughly one-fifth lived in the Northeast (21%) and 11% were in the Midwest.”
I’m not disputing that immigrants live in NYC, just pointing out that it’s not the magnet it once was.
“focus on accommodating cash rich”
Is that anything that wouldn’t happen in a purely economics-driven property market?
If you are equating “high income” with “prosperous community” it would naturally occur. But “high income” does not equate with “prosperous community”. San Francisco is a testament to that. Chicago, NYC, etc. have a higher median income than 1990, while population has been declining.
Replace family of three with one single, it’s natural decline
When I bought my place in Montana, the realtor told me, “There are some covenants, but they’re really weak.”
I said, “Good,” and had her get me a copy to study. I found nothing unbearable. However, ten or so years later, a group of people who had bought after me decided we needed an upgrade. In particular, they wanted to turn the private road into a county road. After that, I’m certain they had other plans for “improving the neighborhood”.
After years of fighting them, and a last ugly confrontation, I decided to sell out and left. Contracts are meaningless in the face of
democracymob rule.I really liked living there.
But at least you got to move away from the damn dogs, right?
Our covenant says that a majority can vote to change the rules which will take place the next time the covenant renews. Or a super majority can change the rules which take effect in three years. So, there is time to sell out if a super majority does something stupid.
Here in rural Iowa, a majority of the property in the area is not covered by a restrictive deed. So choosing to buy into an HOA is a conscious decision. I am aware that in the growing metropolitan areas, vast quantities of properties are covered by extremely restrictive HOAs. So, one is limited to finding the least evil HOA. The answer to that problem, in my opinion, is to move someplace else.
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I believe/assume this is due to the current model of subdivision creation, wherein a single builder like Pulte buys a large chunk of land and lays out all the streets and infrastructure and builds and sells all the houses.
I believe/assume this is due to the current model of subdivision creation, wherein a single builder like Pulte buys a large chunk of land and lays out all the streets and infrastructure and builds and sells all the houses.
Yes.
In my isolated, rural development, the property owner put in the well system and placed some very loose rules on minimum square footage on house size. All the people buying in hired their own builders. Every house looks different.
Which is mostly because only big builders can get the required approvals. Its too expensive for a small builder of a diy guy to get approvals.
There we have the root cause.
Small builders can’t build.
Large builders control the market, because government puts its foot on the scale to give large builders the advantage.
And all the large builders put very similar, very restrictive covenants on they properties they develop (without colluding in anyway that would be illegal).
So, the market in homes that come with varying degrees of restrictions in their covenants or with no covenant evaporates.
So, shut down government intervention and HOAs lose their powers.
Yep, and honestly, all of my suggestions are probably 2nd order. Fix this first and lots of the rest will flow naturally. Including strong pushback to allow at least next increment of building on properties.
Speaking of which, a proposal (probably wont get it exactly) I saw on strongtowns years ago was to allow incremental height increases by a formula. Here is general idea. Take your 8 bordering properties (assume a square grid, it doesnt have to be exactly 8) and average there number of stories per property. You can build 1.5 stories higher than that average (round up on .5_). So, a brand new neighborhood with no construction, you could build, by right, a 2 story building (1.5 rounded up). Once enough neighbors build something, you could go to 3. Later, you could go to 4. Etc, etc. So you couldnt build a 36 story penis in a SFH neighborhood. But if all your neighbors have 2 stories, you could build a 4 story penis.
I think its unnecessary and overly restrictive, but if you are really worried about these things, it works. My neighbors are a pretty even mix of 1 and 2 story houses, so I could build to 3, but 4 wouldn’t be allowed.
But at least you got to move away from the damn dogs, right?
Unfortunately, no. There are more barking dogs here than there were there. And the neighbors are closer. I actually like this area. It’s mostly agricultural and small (5-10 acre) horse properties. Away from town, but not too far away.
Let us consider organic growth. Let’s say you live in an area which was once quiet and removed from town, but now is busy and populous. The road to town has been widened, traffic has increased, lights have been put in. A sizeable property, like a farm, comes up for sale along the main road and Walmart buys it. Are you going to stop it? How? Why? Nothing lasts forever.
My development is surrounded by farms. If one of them decided to sell out to a company that wanted to build factory in my back yard, then there is nothing I can or should be able to do.
So, I choose carefully. No commercial development is going to occur around me in my lifetime.
See my story above. We thought we chose carefully, too. Several miles from the city, and city growth had been trending the opposite direction for decades. Then it happened.
The road to town has been widened, traffic has increased, lights have been put in. A sizeable property, like a farm, comes up for sale along the main road and Walmart buys it.
You’ve described a classic example of big business loves big government and vice versa.
There’s the flip side of that as well. There was a woman who lived in an east side suburb (Willoughby) and had owned the property back when it was a much more rural area. She kept sheep on the property. Over the years, the suburb was built out around her. She kept the sheep on her property, and was grandfathered (grandmothered?) to be permitted regardless of what rules were in place. 75 sheep can produce a hell of a stink. That land is now development.
Gun club builds a range out in the woods. A century later, grown from the nearest village has caused a neighborhood to be built on adjacent property. For now, we’re keeping the place open by attending every town meeting, but it’s only a matter of time until we’re outvoted.
Same neighborhood- a guy comes in, builds a pole barn behind the house to run his plumbing contractor business out of. Are you going to sue him to tear it down?
Pole Barn. Isn’t that a big box strip club?
It is, but the strippers all look like heifers.
The neighbor across the road from my cabin built a ‘uge metal building close to the road. Fortunately he uses it more for storage of his construction equipment. While it doesn’t make me happy it’s on his property and he has to look at all day too while my trees are growing and shielding my view. Plus my eyesight isn’t so good anymore.
Yes. Based on internet documentaries I’ve seen, plumbers move in, start banging lonely milfs, and the sink still leaks. Too much drama in the neighborhood for my taste. Take your tool bag to another town, Mr Plumber.
Bit of a pickle since I’m slammed this afternoon and can’t participate well…
Deontologically, where I’m at is that zoning, property taxes, and imminent domain are plain theft and should not exist. Period.
Not to mention (most of) the gigantic stack of regulations, etc. What would cities (and everywhere else) look like if a culture/population STARTED with those first principles, or if the huge violations of them in them in the last ~150 years hadn’t happened? Dunno, but fun to think about.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/court-rules-ca-ammo-background-checks-unconstitutional/
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I’m having an issue with forcing the expiration of contracts at an arbitrary date. Patents and whatnot aren’t contracts, they are government-granted privileges, so that analogy doesn’t work for me.
When it comes to land, “perpetual” burdens on the land go way back (raising a Chesterton’s Fence issue in my mind). The classic is easements. If transferring a property gets it out of the burdens imposed by an HOA, why not the burdens imposed by easements? Some previous owner agreed to the easement (or, worse, had it forced on them by operation of law/the state). If the new owner doesn’t want it, why doesn’t it go away?
Because somebody is still relying on it? In this purely transactional view, that just means they have to pay off the new owner every time the parcel is sold, right? If they don’t like it, they can lump it and sell their (now valueless, or at least reduced in value) property. Just like the people who don’t want an office tower built next to them in their formerly residential neighborhood. One owner increases the value of his property, and it’s hard not to see how this is at the expense of his neighbors – an involuntary transfer of value, if you will.
One of the things that the common law of real property recognized and struggled with was the fact that what you do with your property directly affects others. Telling them to fuck off, it’s your property and you can anything at all with it that you like is a recipe for conflict. Has zoning gone too far? No argument here. Should it be replaced with a “Fuck off or pay up” rule? Color me unconvinced. I don’t believe a purely one-dimensional view of property ownership as purely transactional and economic can lay a durable foundation for a healthy society. How the concepts of “nuisance” factor into this new view of property ownership? Sounds like it would just go away. I doubt many people would be satisfied with their philosophical purity when their formerly residential community starts hosting an industrial hog farm.
When you join an HOA, for example, you are joining a community, a web of relationships. Everybody who buys a house there knows what they are buying into and what they are agreeing to (and that includes selling their house to someone who also has to agree to joining the HOA). Blowing up the reliance of all the HOA members on the durablility of what they bought into strikes me as not particularly libertarian at all. It’s a voluntary association on its own terms and should be respected as such.
thank you
Hope this makes sense, but I see classical easements as more of a negative prohibition, as in “you can’t prohibit so-and-so from passing through to their property”, versus the more-heard-about positive prohibition of “you can’t do what you want with your own property (paint color) even though this prohibition does nothing to preserve the pre-existing rights of your neighbor”.
I think there’s a difference.
My problems with this are:
1. The examples of “what if someone builds ludicrously inappropriate structure here” fail for the same reason I reject the concept of “economic justice.” People build things either because of whimsy or because the construction will make some modicum of economic sense. Nobody’s going to build a hog farm in a neighborhood because the lots are too small and the land is too expensive to make a profit.
2. Yes, perpetual burdens go way back, but I think that’s for the exact same reason that hereditary monarchies go way back — someone in power wants to keep it for themselves and their descendants.
3. An expiration date on a contract does not preclude the reestablishing of said contract. Admittedly, nobody needs 23 kinds of contracts…
4. The HOA is a way of explicitly violating this purported web of relationships/sense of community. They’re a way of coercing the nonconformist.
5. Externalities are a thing, but they are always going to be a thing. Using them (especially nth order externalities) just justify a direct imposition on someone else does not balance (in my admittedly individual judgement).
6. A perpetual “voluntary” association is nonsense. You can vote your way into communism, so therefore the USSR is free?
Regarding #1, I guess sure, all of these hypotheticals could happen, but there still needs to be cooperation. Are you going to have a successful business if you piss off the entire neighborhood?
Exactly. A neighborhood pub isnt going to survive by pulling in customers from outside the neighborhood. But, on the otherhand, I am not sure how many of Hammerheads customers were from Swan St (see one of my comments elsewhere).
And re: #5, yes, externalities are a thing, and in many cases, they are a positive. A neighbor putting up a 4 unit apartment building on his lot may INCREASE your property value. How much would your lot be worth if everyone else on your street built a skyscraper on their lot? There is a economic reason they are doing it, and it increases the value of your lot (this is one way that a land value tax leads to lots being used for their highest value, and not left empty or whatnot).
Quibble on verbiage: there’s no such thing as objective value (read: sales price).
What one imagines it MIGHT be worth at any given point in time, and what somebody else will actually pay, may or may not have anything to do with one another.
So yeah, the neighbor’s stuff you don’t like may well increase your potential sales price but still make you mad enough to do some bad things (see below) if those actions decrease the emotional value of your property.
quibble on your quibble: I never used the word objective.
Acknowledged. I’d just been waiting for the chance to plug my “there’s no such thing…” line and that seemed to be as close as I was gonna get.
And it’s Libertopia, so there ain’t a heckuva lot of cops or courts. And not everyone will be as perfectly and ideally rational and non-aggressive as all us Glibs.
So doing things that piss off your neighbors, or make them feel like they’ve been robbed of their homes, might have some consequences we don’t usually see today. New negative incentives will be learned.
Even today, people picket and protest things.
True, and the Libertopia example would see cases of picketing and protest. And private lawsuits, etc.
I’m talking about fire and blood.
Cities are not bad. Cities are the second law of thermodynamics — to create things you’ve got to have an inequality, and to create great things you need a massive one. You only get Beethoven, cathedrals or fine dining if you’ve got enough people and enough resources in a small place.
The problem exists when city dwellers get to dictate to non-city dwellers what they should do based on the principle of “there are more of us than there are of you.” This is probably a natural state of primates, but it’s made much worse by the pretext that a geographical area is a coherent polity.
At some point the city dwellers will run into non-city-dwellers who say “no soup for you”.
One owner increases the value of his property, and it’s hard not to see how this is at the expense of his neighbors – an involuntary transfer of value, if you will.
I look at property value in terms of utility, not investment. Not everybody does. That doesn’t mean a neighbor cannot do something which impairs my ability to use or enjoy my property.
Biggest surprise, no one commented about the obvious tracking device that is going to end up in every car if all the roads are tolled. What kind of libertarians are you? Cause that thought even bothers me.
“Gun club builds a range out in the woods. A century later, grown from the nearest village has caused a neighborhood to be built on adjacent property. For now, we’re keeping the place open by attending every town meeting, but it’s only a matter of time until we’re outvoted.”
Funny you should mention that
Laguna Seca has been one of North America’s premier race tracks since 1957. Sixty-seven years later, the circuit is being sued by a group of Monterey County residents concerned about the noise and traffic that come when you live by a race track.
A group calling itself the Highway 68 Coalition claims that the track’s increased use has exacerbated those problems. Group attorney Richard Rosenthal noted that the track is now used “340 days a year,” leaving the circuit rarely quiet.
All of that additional activity has made the track a notable part of the regional economy. The track, which is operated by a third party but owned by the county, produced $246 million in economic impact during its major events in 2022. Last year, total attendance eclipsed 350,000 and the track was rented out 131 times. The track’s annual Motorsports Reunion historic races are also part of a larger Monterey Car Week, an event that brought in $65 million in visitor spending when it was held in 2022.
In other words, Laguna Seca’s growing popularity has been a major win for the region’s place as a tourist destination. That same popularity has drawn the ire of the Highway 68 Coalition, which now aims to restrict the track from hosting more racing events and rentals than it did when its legal nonconforming use was established nearly 40 years ago.
If you move next door to an existing “nuisance” that’s tough shit for you, in my opinion.
When I lived in Ketchum, there was a subdivision south of Hailey, right across the road from the airport. The airport was there first, but that didn’t stop a group of those people from trying to get the airport shut down. They managed to get the operating hours restricted.
People must like it when i yell at them. Otherwise they wouldn’t keep doing stupid shit.
>.>
The Irish rebel version of Tonio’s favorite song :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVjk_aFdfF8