The bottom line rebuttal to all the variants of the “but whatabout people who want to live in single-family houses” arguments is real simple: if it were truly that important to them, then they would be willing to pay fair-market rates for it. Which means artificially inflating the supply (thus subsidizing the price) via restrictive zoning laws wouldn’t be necessary.
People who think they are entitled to live in single-family houses to the point that they want the law to forcibly impose that lifestyle on vast swathes of the population are just selfish takers who want society to subsidize them.
When I told one of my friends the idea of owning a full family home was selfish, they were shocked until I put into the perspective of how many people can fit in a city and save on transportation cost for materials and work across the board. It was a nice relief for them to realize the point.
I think the real truth of it is that these people conveniently default to whatever gets them away from other people because people are always telling them how wrong they are for acting how they do. They want no consequences for hating with prejudice.
The “normal” working-class single-family neighborhoods in my city are zoned R4, with a 9000 sq.ft. minimum lot size. The rich neighborhoods are zoned R1, with a 2 acre minimum lot size. That means every R1 lot could fit at least nine R4 homes on it. Why do we have ridiculous shitty traffic on the freeway going past that rich neighborhood? Because every single one of those mansions physically displaced eight other households out into the suburbs, who could have otherwise lived there if the law wasn’t being (ab)used to subsidize the rich.
And that’s just the difference between two kinds of single-family, let alone rezoning to allow the real level of density the market demands! If my city were zoned appropriately, the entire metro area population could be housed within the ring road.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying it’s “selfish” or wrong to want to live in a single-family home… just that you only deserve one if and only if you’re actually willing to pay for it. That means being willing to outbid multifamily developers who would build the lot out to its highest and best use, not hiding behind zoning to protect you from the free market.
(I’m also not saying it isn’t selfish or wrong; I just try to stick to the geometric argument to deprive the person I’m debating of an excuse to turn it into an emotional debate.)
This is new information to me. In a hypothetical scenario, would it be realistic for every person to have room for a home big enough for a family, and still have plenty of room for agriculture, industry, and all the services for those homes, plus any entertainment venues, assuming you don’t account for existing infrastructure (or even if you do)? I’d probably just be sad to learn the real numbers.
The bottom line rebuttal to all the variants of the “but whatabout people who want to live in single-family houses” arguments is real simple: if it were truly that important to them, then they would be willing to pay fair-market rates for it. Which means artificially inflating the supply (thus subsidizing the price) via restrictive zoning laws wouldn’t be necessary.
People who think they are entitled to live in single-family houses to the point that they want the law to forcibly impose that lifestyle on vast swathes of the population are just selfish takers who want society to subsidize them.
Suburbs are also not giving that much space. Houses aren’t that far apart.
When I told one of my friends the idea of owning a full family home was selfish, they were shocked until I put into the perspective of how many people can fit in a city and save on transportation cost for materials and work across the board. It was a nice relief for them to realize the point.
I think the real truth of it is that these people conveniently default to whatever gets them away from other people because people are always telling them how wrong they are for acting how they do. They want no consequences for hating with prejudice.
I make this point at every opportunity:
The “normal” working-class single-family neighborhoods in my city are zoned R4, with a 9000 sq.ft. minimum lot size. The rich neighborhoods are zoned R1, with a 2 acre minimum lot size. That means every R1 lot could fit at least nine R4 homes on it. Why do we have ridiculous shitty traffic on the freeway going past that rich neighborhood? Because every single one of those mansions physically displaced eight other households out into the suburbs, who could have otherwise lived there if the law wasn’t being (ab)used to subsidize the rich.
And that’s just the difference between two kinds of single-family, let alone rezoning to allow the real level of density the market demands! If my city were zoned appropriately, the entire metro area population could be housed within the ring road.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying it’s “selfish” or wrong to want to live in a single-family home… just that you only deserve one if and only if you’re actually willing to pay for it. That means being willing to outbid multifamily developers who would build the lot out to its highest and best use, not hiding behind zoning to protect you from the free market.
(I’m also not saying it isn’t selfish or wrong; I just try to stick to the geometric argument to deprive the person I’m debating of an excuse to turn it into an emotional debate.)
This is new information to me. In a hypothetical scenario, would it be realistic for every person to have room for a home big enough for a family, and still have plenty of room for agriculture, industry, and all the services for those homes, plus any entertainment venues, assuming you don’t account for existing infrastructure (or even if you do)? I’d probably just be sad to learn the real numbers.