Should cities build more dense housing or sprawl out at the urban fringe? Scott Beyer, the Market Urbanist, wants to see more density while I want to allow more sprawl. Surprisingly, in a debate yesterday over which was the best way to make housing affordable again, Beyer conceded that low-density development was more affordable than high-density. Instead, he argued for high-density development for other reasons.
High-density development, he said, was more environmentally sound, fiscally sustainable, and led to greater worker productivity (which economists call “agglomerative economies”). He claimed that people would live a lot denser if they could but such density is outlawed.
“We would have a lot more Manhattans if we deregulated,” Beyer said. “Downtown San Francisco, downtown Los Angeles, and downtown Seattle would all be examples of cities that would become dramatically more dense and become ‘Manhattanized’ if we deregulated.”
I disagreed, presenting survey data indicating that 40 percent of people living in dense big cities wished they could live in lower-density areas while more people want to live in low-density suburbs and rural areas than actually live in such areas. This is confirmed by people’s actual behavior, since the suburbs of the nation’s 50 largest urban areas are growing far faster than the central cities. This includes Houston, which has no zoning and nothing preventing “Manhattanization” if people wanted it.
Beyer argued that the fact that people pay more for high-density housing in places like Manhattan than for single-family homes in low-density suburbs was an indicator of the pent-up demand for such housing. I responded with a quick lesson in the laws of supply and demand showing that something can have a higher price even if demand is lower if the cost of providing it is greater.
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I didn’t respond to Beyer’s points about dense areas being more environmentally and fiscally sustainable or that they promote more worker productivity because that wasn’t the subject of the debate. If I had, I would have said that it is less expensive to build a zero-energy suburban home than to build mid-rise or high-rise housing and that the infrastructure premium for low-density housing is also much smaller than the cost premium for high density. As for worker productivity, between automobiles, telephones, and the internet, urban areas with 2,400 people per square mile can be just as productive as areas with 70,000 people per square mile.
Of course, incomes in Manhattan are higher than elsewhere, but agglomerative economies have little to do with it. Instead, Manhattan’s high real-estate costs have pushed out low-income families and low-rent businesses. Despite claims of agglomerative economies, many businesses have recently discovered that people working at home are just as productive as they were in high-priced offices.
The third participant in the debate, Scott Lincicome, took a middle view arguing for the elimination of all land-use rules. My response was that people consider living in a single-family neighborhood to be a property right, and zoning is one way to express that right (covenants being the other way). Since single-family zoning doesn’t make housing less affordable so long as there is a supply of vacant land for more housing, eliminating single-family zoning effectively takes away people’s right to live the way they want without producing any benefits.
The debate suffered from a couple of technical glitches. First, my own connection, which worked fine when we tested it earlier in the week, was so slow that Cato had to replace my video with a still photo. Then, near the end of the debate, Vimeo, which was providing the platform for the webcast, crashed, cutting off the question-and-answer period. I hope we will be able to post our answers to the questions people submitted on the event page.
Although a web cast was in some ways not as good as having a live audience, more than 300 people tuned into the web cast and hundreds more have watched it since then. That’s worthy of another debate over agglomerative economies.
When a planner says density will “promote worker productivity”, it shows his assumption (really, his desire) that people be FORCED to live packed in an then work in factories or crammed offices to be more productive for the greater good of whom? Certainly not the workers. Just the elites and an all-controlling government?
If a capitalist made the argument that we have to make people live closer together so they can produce more and benefit the company, there would be instant denunciations and attacks. That was how they did things 100 years ago. Remember the old company towns and company stores?
His argument is really to go back to the bad old days, but this time with the planners and their friends controlling the workers.
I have generally found that advocates of higher density live in single family homes, and frequently drive most places. It is always worth asking panelists in such a discussion to state the sq ft of floor space for their dwelling, number of people living there (if volunteered for privacy concerns), lot size they live on, and number of miles they drive every year. I have had panelists refuse outright to state this data as they apparently live in single family homes and drive to most places. Most amazing are the county planners who drive to work and have subsidized parking, when I see not reason why a public employee should have free parking. They will often state that free parking just encourages people to drive, then defend their subsidize parking spot! As one of our country supervisors once said tongue in cheek , “higher densities and smart growth are great for other people.”
I tried to ask a question during this debate via the chat option. My question is we are told the cost of public infrastructure to extend roads, water and sewer outward with new fringe development is prohibitive; and so, this is why the land available on the edges of Urban Growth Boundary is really not practical. What say you, Randal?
Lots of states use impact fees now, it hasn’t slowed the demand for low density homes. And there are ways to economize, homes can use wells and septic tanks for example.
Bob Clark,
The costs of sprawl study cited by Scott Beyer estimated that low-density development added $11,000 per home to urban service costs. This compared building low-density vs. high-density development on greenfields. Building high-density development in areas already designed for low-density will probably cost more. In any case, $11,000 per house is small compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars added to the cost of homes by growth management.
You can dismiss Today’s modern advocates and political hucksters if they withhold from debate they’re not worth listening to. Urban planners and architects like Andres Duany love the lecture circuits, they hate debate.
Density is a loveable pet subject of environmentalists and urban elitiest, who argue that densely populated cities are the solution to energy, environmental, medical, social……….whatever problem is plaguing society as they see. On the other hand, the solar envelope shows that above a certain treshold, density can also raise energy requirements, in particular those of heating, cooling and daylighting buildings.
The idea of density driving productivity has been around for a long time. The idea’s been around a long time but there isn’t a lot of evidence for it. More so, there isn’t any evidence that more density drives more innovation.
Thing about it, where has innovation these days came out of? Manhattan? The only “innovation” Manhattan has brought us is algo trading. But that’s not something that creates more wealth; just squeezing more out of the existing pie.
google started on sprawling Stanford campus. Amazon got started in a suburban garage. Sandpaper was invented by 3M in northern Minnesota ( aka the empty frozen north ) Etc, etc, etc.
As time has passed, we’ve come to realize that density in the form of the open office causes LESS interpersonal interactions. Anyone walking around Manhattan would find the same. Too much density and people stop interacting with strangers. And that’s a key part of “innovation”, people interacting that births great ideas.
The same with productivity.
Despite being several times more dense, Silicon Alley isn’t any more productive than Silicon Prairie nor Silicon Valley.
A lot of people have a very outdated image of cities. The fact of the matter is that large corporations long ago moved to the suburbs and lawyers and bankers are the only ones who still need to be downtown.
Mr O’toole left out half of Scott Beyer’s position. Mr Beyer stated that he is against regulations that limit density AND regulations that limit sprawl. I’m not sure why Mr. O’toole left out half of Scott’s positions and suggested that he only wants so see more density.
Right. My actual position, as stated in the debate, is:
1) lifting both anti-density and anti-sprawl regs will expand consumer choice and lower prices.
2) while both regs are bad, anti-density ones are worse from a cost-benefit perspective, for reasons having not to do with housing affordability, but with the higher economic productivity of dense areas.
Readers may enjoy this interactive World Population Density map.
http://www.luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen
The world is big and it is mostly empty.
“People consider living in a single-family neighborhood to be a property right, and zoning is one way to express that right (covenants being the other way).”
This is a poor interpretation of property rights. If the restaurant association in a neighborhood lobbies for zoning to prevent other restaurants from opening, is that “property rights” or rent seeking?
Lincicome asked you this during the debate and I look forward to your answer.
With all do respect Beyer. You consider Houston’s civil(not criminal) enforcement of deed restrictions subsidies. Of course that ignores the fact that the restricted neighborhoods pay a disproportionate amount in property in other taxes vs unrestricted neighborhoods. By that argument the lefties argue criminalizing trespassing is subsidizing property rights.
Replies to Scott Beyer and others will be in Tuesday’s Antiplanner.
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If the restaurant association in a neighborhood lobbies for zoning to prevent other restaurants from opening, is that “property rights” or rent seeking?
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When a Chipolate signs a lease with a landlord, that landlord agrees to not let other restaurants onto the property. Or at least ones of a certain type.
if we’re going to get this Libertarian olypmics of impossibly theoretical situations thrown at us, then let’s keep breaking things down into their smaller pieces.
Is that a matter of property rights for the commerical building owner or is Chipotle rent seeking?
Those are 2 different scenarios. The Chipotle one is a fully private transaction. The one I mentioned is a group of private restaurants using the government to win regulatory capture.
These distinctions matter and are not “theoretical.” I parse them more in this article: https://catalyst.independent.org/2020/05/06/zoning-replaced-deed-restrictions-codes/
Those are 2 different scenarios. The Chipotle one is a fully private transaction. The one I mentioned is a group of private restaurants using the government to win regulatory capture.
These distinctions matter and are not “theoretical.” I parse them more in this article: https://catalyst.independent.org/2020/05/06/zoning-replaced-deed-restrictions-codes/
Yes, the agreement between Chipotle and the building owner is private.
So it is a deed on a property. The purchasing party is agreeing to those terms.
But ya, us Libertarians live in an impractical world. It’s overall quite theoretical. Most of this stuff has near-zero chance of being changed.