Illegal_Prime , 11 months ago

I don’t think the “corporate greed” argument is that relevant here, not having to buy all of those things means someone has more disposable income, so spending I don’t think really changes, it’s just you spend less on necessities and more on “fun stuff” so to speak. There’s not much imperial evidence to support it either way, and most of the opposition to zoning reform comes from NIMBys who are scared of any changes in the neighborhood and maybe a little bigoted.

Speaking of which - developers: They have good reason to support denser housing, they’ll get higher returns on selling more houses or apartments on the same land. The reason houses are built huge and expensive is that zoning laws specify large minimum lot sizes, forcing developers to sell what few homes they can build for higher prices. Single family zoning creates artificial scarcity (again mostly out of bigotry and paranoia). If developers weee given more freedom to build what they want, it would be most economical for them to build transit-oriented rowhouse developments. This was standard practice a century ago, but since then it’s mostly been banned.