Another day, another story about how evil single-family zoning makes housing expensive. This one is from Seattle, whose urban-growth boundary was drawn more than 30 years ago and, as far as I know, has never been changed.
This article starts from the premise that someone said that families want single-family homes so turning single-family neighborhoods into multifamily housing is “anti-family.” The writer’s response is that most of the city’s new residents are single, not families. Of course that’s true: thanks to the urban-growth boundary, most families with children can’t afford to live in the city and so choose to live in the suburbs.
Another article, this one from Los Angeles, blames affordability problems on downzoning. Only the writer doesn’t mean downzoning of rural land to prevent urban development but downzoning that took place forty years ago that took existing neighborhoods of single-family homes that had been zoned for higher densities and rezoned them for the single-family uses that were there.
None of these writers ask what kind of housing people want. They assume that people will accept the housing that is available, and if planners create an artificial land shortage, that means more multifamily housing. Continue reading
