me_irl

I make this point at every opportunity:

The "normal" working-class single-family neighborhoods in my city are zoned R4, with a 9000 sq.ft. minimum lot size. The rich neighborhoods are zoned R1, with a 2 acre minimum lot size. That means every R1 lot could fit at least nine R4 homes on it. Why do we have ridiculous shitty traffic on the freeway going past that rich neighborhood? Because every single one of those mansions physically displaced eight other households out into the suburbs, who could have otherwise lived there if the law wasn't being (ab)used to subsidize the rich.

And that's just the difference between two kinds of single-family, let alone rezoning to allow the real level of density the market demands! If my city were zoned appropriately, the entire metro area population could be housed within the ring road.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying it's "selfish" or wrong to want to live in a single-family home... just that you only deserve one if and only if you're actually willing to pay for it. That means being willing to outbid multifamily developers who would build the lot out to its highest and best use, not hiding behind zoning to protect you from the free market.

(I'm also not saying it isn't selfish or wrong; I just try to stick to the geometric argument to deprive the person I'm debating of an excuse to turn it into an emotional debate.)