The Reagan White House moved to lower tax rates for developers in the 1980s and then years of low interest rates glutted downtowns with office buildings. Time's up.
Makes sense. Downtowns are commercial districts with few, if any, residential buildings. Restaurants exist there to feed the various workers. Workers will shop after work or bring family/friends/dates to the area because it’s something they know or are familiar with.
With WFH, no one has a reason to go to downtown. Cost of living increases already make them think twice about doing so.
All in all, we’re seeing a shift from specifically zoned districts to mixed use downtowns. This means smaller stores, more walkable or mass transit focus. These cities will just need to incentivize conversion of these downtowns to include more residential structures.
we need statewide laws, preempting any local zoning laws, that allow dense residential buildings with no parking minimums in any zone that allows office uses.
Disabled parking should always be required. Not everybody can take public transit, or not without it being unreasonably burdensome and/or dangerous (think immunocompromised people for transit being dangerous).
paratransit vans have been a thing for a long time and solve this issue. the amount of traffic they cause is negligible. just follow ADA rules for disabled parking with the spaces you do end up building and don’t worry about it. disabled people are much less likely to own a car in the first place than the average person, so privileging cars does them no good
What cities are preventing downtown residential construction? All the office construction was because it was more profitable. Cities are already bending backwards to developers.
Statewide laws preempting local laws is how you consolidate corruption most effectively. We added a half cent local sales tax to permanently end toll roads 30ish years ago and the state went ahead and overruled it. We still pay thebextra half cent AND they just added ANOTHER goddamn half cent.
Florida is purple but all the state sponsored corruption, racism and meth cna sure make it seem red.
I can understand that but at the same time, it can also counteract a lot of localized perverse incentives. The majority of people might want more housing, but then at the same time there’s a significant part of the voting population (especially at a municipal level) that doesn’t want it in their community because of unfounded fears of higher density, so everybody wants it somewhere else and it doesn’t get done. Well, if you go up a level of government, it’s going to get done everywhere fairly, and people finally realize that it won’t be a problem.
Until you realize that moving it up a level means it is much harder for the individual to affect change. Higher levels means rich people have their say because they can afford to lobby for their say. At least local initiatives can be engaged with by local individuals without the need for a massive warchest to fight entrenched interests. Fight these things locally rather than kicking the can upstairs and hoping the good parts trickle back down.
I strongly think your take is ass backwards as a long term strategy, even while you can affect some short term wins. Republicans are taking over at the state level to push abortion bans, book bans, education limits, pay for religious education with public funding, eliminate equal rights, push conspiracy nonsense, enact voter suppression schemes, push pure propaganda as an educational standard, and on and on. They can’t affect these changes at the municipal level, only by grabbing power away from the local level. There’s a lot more happening in a cumulative manner that needs to be fought against than to be primarily concerned over than local rich landowners and NIMBY fuck-os trying to assert their real estate whims.
here in cali the state’s suing cities for not allowing enough housing to be built, which is literally the cause of half of everything that’s wrong with the state
Zoning is only useful for the type of place that isn’t built to keep harmful emissions confined to their land. Farms (manure smell), and some chemical industry apply and should not have housing at all. Farmers will be shocked to learn I just told them they need to move to town.
Makes sense. Downtowns are commercial districts with few, if any, residential buildings. Restaurants exist there to feed the various workers. Workers will shop after work or bring family/friends/dates to the area because it’s something they know or are familiar with.
With WFH, no one has a reason to go to downtown. Cost of living increases already make them think twice about doing so.
All in all, we’re seeing a shift from specifically zoned districts to mixed use downtowns. This means smaller stores, more walkable or mass transit focus. These cities will just need to incentivize conversion of these downtowns to include more residential structures.
we need statewide laws, preempting any local zoning laws, that allow dense residential buildings with no parking minimums in any zone that allows office uses.
Disabled parking should always be required. Not everybody can take public transit, or not without it being unreasonably burdensome and/or dangerous (think immunocompromised people for transit being dangerous).
paratransit vans have been a thing for a long time and solve this issue. the amount of traffic they cause is negligible. just follow ADA rules for disabled parking with the spaces you do end up building and don’t worry about it. disabled people are much less likely to own a car in the first place than the average person, so privileging cars does them no good
What cities are preventing downtown residential construction? All the office construction was because it was more profitable. Cities are already bending backwards to developers.
Statewide laws preempting local laws is how you consolidate corruption most effectively. We added a half cent local sales tax to permanently end toll roads 30ish years ago and the state went ahead and overruled it. We still pay thebextra half cent AND they just added ANOTHER goddamn half cent.
Florida is purple but all the state sponsored corruption, racism and meth cna sure make it seem red.
I can understand that but at the same time, it can also counteract a lot of localized perverse incentives. The majority of people might want more housing, but then at the same time there’s a significant part of the voting population (especially at a municipal level) that doesn’t want it in their community because of unfounded fears of higher density, so everybody wants it somewhere else and it doesn’t get done. Well, if you go up a level of government, it’s going to get done everywhere fairly, and people finally realize that it won’t be a problem.
Until you realize that moving it up a level means it is much harder for the individual to affect change. Higher levels means rich people have their say because they can afford to lobby for their say. At least local initiatives can be engaged with by local individuals without the need for a massive warchest to fight entrenched interests. Fight these things locally rather than kicking the can upstairs and hoping the good parts trickle back down.
I strongly think your take is ass backwards as a long term strategy, even while you can affect some short term wins. Republicans are taking over at the state level to push abortion bans, book bans, education limits, pay for religious education with public funding, eliminate equal rights, push conspiracy nonsense, enact voter suppression schemes, push pure propaganda as an educational standard, and on and on. They can’t affect these changes at the municipal level, only by grabbing power away from the local level. There’s a lot more happening in a cumulative manner that needs to be fought against than to be primarily concerned over than local rich landowners and NIMBY fuck-os trying to assert their real estate whims.
here in cali the state’s suing cities for not allowing enough housing to be built, which is literally the cause of half of everything that’s wrong with the state
Zoning is only useful for the type of place that isn’t built to keep harmful emissions confined to their land. Farms (manure smell), and some chemical industry apply and should not have housing at all. Farmers will be shocked to learn I just told them they need to move to town.
Here here