Political Memes

I only mention North America because the US and Canada are the only two countries I have lived in, and thus have the most intimate knowledge of how their urban land use policies work.

But even outside of North America, many places have some form of restrictive land use policy. In the UK, I know they have the council system, where there's a local council that has veto power over every single development. It may not be the same form as North American zoning, but the net effect on making it de facto illegal to build enough housing.

I'm also aware of many other European countries having strict land use policies that make it extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to build denser housing, hence why many European cities (cough cough Amsterdam) have ludicrous housing crises.

Japan is perhaps the most notable exception that I'm aware of. In the 1980s and 1990s, they had the mother of all real estate bubbles burst, which devastated their economy, and the lesson they learned was they needed to make it easier to build housing to avoid a similar thing ever again occurring. They made land use policies uniform and quite permissive at the national level, allowing people to build most housing by right in most locations. The result? Tokyo, despite being the most populous metro area in the world, is actually remarkably affordable, even to minimum wage earners.

In truth, NIMBYism is a gigantic problem even (especially!) in places where people profess to hold liberal and/or progressive values. It's a massive contributor to the housing crisis in California, for instance... and the attitude is not limited to Boomers, who are reaching the age now where they're as likely to be entering assisted living homes as they are to be stubbornly holding on to a house in the 'burbs that's appreciated 1000% since they bought it. GenX and even those us Millennials who are fortunate enough to own can be and often are just as guilty of NIMBYism as the old folks.

One example is allowing the construction of ADUs. Throwing a small apartment on top of a garage is an extremely common addition these days that requires minimal waste.

Similarly even without ADUs, many homes in my neighborhood just outside of Boston have been remodeled from single family 5 beds to 2/3 family condos without being completely demolished. This was largely made possible by eliminating rules and regulations like the parking requirements for houses near public transit and loosening restrictions on conversions themselves by reducing restrictions for setbacks and similar rules. My own home is a condo conversion and it’s the only reason we could afford to own here.