M1EK's Bake-Sale of Bile

Dude what are you talking about. Have you ever been to Houston. They have very limited zoning. You can build as dense as you desire. And what do they have? Sprawl. Lots of sprawl. This idea that dense downtown development will get rid of sprawl is a fantasy. Its not based on logic. And letting the market decide. Well its already been tried in Houston. And it didnt get rid of sprawl.

Try this recent entry:

http://mdahmus.thebaba.com/blog/archives/000212.html

Turns out, Houston's other set of rules are strict enough to effectively qualify as zoning (in some cases they're even stricter than traditional suburban zoning).

Interesting article, especially dovetailing it with the aforementioned "Houston" paper.

But I don't fully agree with the assertion that the market automatically pushes for density. That statement needs some heavy qualification like "pushes for maximum density for any particular development." Above and beyond anything else, the developer is going to push for profit maximization, which partly means density but also requires cost minimization. Land is a critical component, so the perfect developer scenario is dumping as much revenue-generating stuff as possible on cheap land. Even removing market distortions, there's an inherent drive to push dense development away (but not too far) from population centers towards less expensive land.

The statement becomes more applicable when you factor in subsidized roadways and water, urban zoning limitations, and bureacratic wrangling. The the distortions clearly work to promote sprawl by pushing development away from artificially expensive land and pulling it towards artificially cheap land.

So it seems to me that until there's a fundamental shift away from demand-driven priorities (i.e. big lots, white picket fences, etc.) that glorify the 'burbs, and supply-driven factors that ignore traffic, pollution, and other externalities, some level of sprawl is inherent. But it might be preferable if we didn't help it along so much.