The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry | Climate Town (feat. @NotJustBikes)

A funny, yet very well researched video on that exact same topic of Zoning nonsense. Entertaining AND informative. ▶ this video

in “California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers” · View on HN

This depends on how you define ROI. Car infrastructure and lack of density reduces tax revenue for cities and strains infrastructure. There are other human benefits to reducing car traffic and use in favor of public transportation: * Reduces air pollution * Noise pollution * Allows a focus on human centric urban planning * Allows for higher density commercial and residential increasing tax revenue * Reduces pedestrian traffic injury Well done video essays: Parking minimums [link] Noise pollution [link] Infrastructure strain [link] More on Infrastructure and Sprawl ▶ this video Articles: [link] [link] [link] Climate town videos are all well researched and provide an enormous amount of follow-up content from their sources. Generally, I care about all of the above and I perceive investments in public transportation to have a higher ROI. Some extra historical context is helpful too: [link] The book The Color of Law by Rothstein is worth a read. In the end there is a balance between public transportation and car dependency and right now the scales are leaning too much in favor of cars.

in “Pontevedra, Spain declares its entire urban area a "reduced traffic zone"” · View on HN

There are quite a few factors, I'd encourage checking out the following videos by Not Just Bikes and Climate Towns that cover a broad range of city planning and zoning in the US. Strong Towns Play List by Not Just Bikes (This heavily covers city planning issues in the US): [link] The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry by Climate Towns (This covers zoning): ▶ this video How The Auto Industry Carjacked The American Dream (This covers the auto industries impact on US cities.): [link] Dutch Cities are Better for the Climate (and my sanity) by Not Just Bikes (Not super relevant to zoning, but it's part 1 of The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry so I figured I'd link it.): [link] These are pretty snarky, but fun videos and the authors list their sources. Their video descriptions are worth checking out just to find a ton of reading material on each topic.

in “Americans do not want to return to urban living” · View on HN

The Lively & Liveable Neighbourhoods that are Illegal in Most of North America : [link] The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry | Climate Town (feat. Not Just Bikes) : ▶ this video

in “Measuring the impact of zoning on housing in a city” · View on HN

This is due to zoning laws. Many people desperately want smaller housing, but it's effectively illegal everywhere in the USA. The only alternative is to buy rural land and try to get creative with the law (e.g. your tiny home on an existing rusted old trailer frame is considered a "remodel", etc) or simply build a small cabin and hope no one from the government comes to bulldoze it. Even success here means you're stuck far away from jobs, infrastructure, etc. Existing small houses are priced as high (or higher) than new-build McMansions. See also: "missing middle" ▶ this video

in “The US Housing Market Has Become an Impossible Mess” · View on HN

It's an issue with the zoning laws. Back when it became illegal to ban black people from your neighborhood the next best thing was to ban the kind of housing that black people could afford. So the only place where it's legal to put the kind of housing that addresses the problem is in the city centers which were already established and therefore out of scope for the zoning restrictions. (more on this: ▶ this video )

in “Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness” · View on HN