Believing in the free market
I have often defended in this blog zoning and land-use regulations. They have brought many benefits to American cities, and so I felt the need to fight against the growing neo-conservative attempt to define any regulation as a taking. I believe the right to use one’s property is constrained by traditional common law, limited to what does not harm others and contributes to the common good, as defined by the people’s elected representatives.
Despite that general philosophic position, I have come to realize that in many ways zoning policy in United States cities has ominous implications for the environment. For example, I’ve been to dozens of cities that have made substantial investments in mass transit. Yet around the transit stations are hundreds of single-family detached houses, which persist because the municipality does not want to loosen or remove the restriction on density. Despite all the good done by Euclidean zoning system back in the industrial period, it has become today one of the biggest causes of sprawl. Ecologists need to argue that most density restrictions should be eased, and that society should let the free market build more densely in already developed parcels if there’s a market for it.
