Market Urbanism

Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up

“Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics (market), with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society (urbanism). We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions to urban issues, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.

On the Mixing of Incompatible Uses and Incumbency

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houses-pollution-nuclear-power-plants-industrial-plants-factory-_557745-47I noticed an interestingly ironic thing today.

The usual argument for the necessity of use-based zoning is that it protects homeowners in residential area from uses that would potentially create negative externalities – ie: smelting factory, garbage dump, or Sriracha factory.

Urban Economics teaches us that such an event happening is highly unlikely in today’s marketplace. (nevermind the fact that nuisance laws should resolve these disputes) The business owner who is looking for a site for a stinky business would be foolish to look in a residential area where land costs are significantly higher.

However, as Aaron Renn pointed out in the comments of my last post on Planned Manufacturing Districts, the inverse of this is happening in many cities as residential uses begin to outbid other uses in industrial areas:

I think part of the rationale in this is that once you allow residential into a manufacturing zone, the new residents will start issuing loud complaints about the byproducts of manufacturing: noise, smells, etc. I know owners of businesses in Chicago who have experienced just that. They’ve been there for decades but now are getting complaints from people who live in residential buildings that didn’t even exist when the manufacturer located there. This puts those businesses under a lot of pressure to leave as officials will almost always side with residents who vote rather than businesses who don’t get to.

It’s clear this is a more relevant defense of use-based zoning than the one we usually hear. Of course, I’d argue that segregating uses through zoning isn’t a just way to resolve these disputes, and my last post discusses some of the detrimental consequences for cities.

It seems ironic, because it inverts the usual argument in-favor of zoning.  Residents are choosing to move near established industrial firms, and PMDs are a tool used to defend incumbent industries from residents.  Despite it’s lack of economic soundness, zoning is typically rationalized through an emotional appeal to defend incumbent residents from dirty industry.

This doesn’t decisively refute use-based-zoning in itself.  In-fact, I’m afraid it may bolster the case, but it does help expose the appeal to emotions used to defend zoning.

  • neroden

    It does actually make sense to have zoning for loud, smelly, and potentially toxic industrial uses.

    What doesn’t make sense is segregating residential and commercial from each other.

  • hcat

    But nowadays everything but a single family home at least as big as yours or mine is considered “loud, smelly, and potentially toxic,” including granny flats and churches.

  • Miles Bader

    … and even many light industrial and manufacturing uses are compatible with residential use.

    The area I live in was many decades ago home to heavy industry (including, according to the local museum, steel making!) but has slowly turned mostly residential, and in many areas is quite dense. In the past decade this movement has accelerated dramatically. However even now there’s a lot of random light industrial uses left, casting and machining of small specialized metal parts, weird stuff like wire and light-bulb (!) manufacturing, etc.

    I walk many past of these places daily and you wouldn’t even know many of them were there if it weren’t for the obviously utilitarian architecture and the sign on the wall. My guess is that the main reason they’re disappearing is economic, not incompatibility with residential use…

    There are certainly uses which are so noxious that you don’t want them anywhere near peoples’ homes, but any laws should be based on actual incompatibility, not lazy generalizations.

  • Matt Robare

    They’ve found in Houston that residential land values tend to drive away the most unpleasant uses.

    The thing is, though, with zoning separating uses it’s like we’re allowing industry to be as dirty as possible. They don’t have to spend a dime on mitigating noise and smells, whereas in neighborhoods where industries and residences were neighbors they did take the trouble to accomodate each other.

  • This was the heart of Jane Jacobs’ argument for performance zoning.

    If we were to codify nuisance laws as zoning (i.e. in this area, noise cannot exceed X decibels, and air quality cannot fall below X), it would give manufacturers the opportunity to mitigate their environmental effects, and encourage related innovations.

    And, to Adam’s point, performance zoning would also protect industry without necessarily segregating uses.

  • Yes, that is a core point of the original post.

  • Absolutely. Nuisance laws and common law (and just being neighborly) are a better way to address these types of disputes, rather than codifying land use patterns. And as Matt points out, codifying use almost gives permission to be “heavy” industry when it might not even belong there…

  • The difference between nuisance laws or common law and performance zoning is that the community as a whole would have a proactive say in the character of the neighborhood–for better or worse.

    In other words, there would be planning, but it would attempt to harness the adaptive capacity of markets.

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