You'll notice that the model is additive instead of exclusionary. Basically if a block is zoned light commercial, you can put stores, apartments, or single family homes on it. Here is a nice chart https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lweabho82d0/U0HCJsQ3tbI/AAAAAAAAA...
Tokyo does zoning right, and the simplest first step to solve housing problems that plague major American cities is to just adopt a model of zoning that is proven to work.
1- Zoning is a *national law*, not a municipal by-law
A national zoning law is very interesting.
My biggest complaint about every city in TX I lived in (Houston, Austin, SATX, Dallas) was the lack of MDUs (among other things) causing them all to be painfully sparse. I lived in the densest neighborhoods I could find, usually Uptown or with Austin right off Guad by UT and 5th/Comal and my life now living in Denver which has a HUGE amount of MDUs/Duplexes/etc everywhere is so drastically different even though Denver has nowhere near the population of those. I haven't driven my car in months and nearly everyone I know lives in a 1-10 block radius.
What was my previous mountain view from my 4 story townhouse is now an 11 story office building directly behind me that glares down at my patio, though, so there's that. I think it's coming with 400-1000 car parking spots (underground garage).
We've been trying to get this (currently) low-traffic, low-mph throughfare street to completely ban car traffic and be turned into pedestrian/restaurant walking only, which it was during COVID and was wonderful, so that's probably dead in the water now.
Comments
Here is a good article on Tokyo zoning: https://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.htm...
You'll notice that the model is additive instead of exclusionary. Basically if a block is zoned light commercial, you can put stores, apartments, or single family homes on it. Here is a nice chart https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lweabho82d0/U0HCJsQ3tbI/AAAAAAAAA...
Tokyo does zoning right, and the simplest first step to solve housing problems that plague major American cities is to just adopt a model of zoning that is proven to work.
A national zoning law is very interesting.
My biggest complaint about every city in TX I lived in (Houston, Austin, SATX, Dallas) was the lack of MDUs (among other things) causing them all to be painfully sparse. I lived in the densest neighborhoods I could find, usually Uptown or with Austin right off Guad by UT and 5th/Comal and my life now living in Denver which has a HUGE amount of MDUs/Duplexes/etc everywhere is so drastically different even though Denver has nowhere near the population of those. I haven't driven my car in months and nearly everyone I know lives in a 1-10 block radius.
What was my previous mountain view from my 4 story townhouse is now an 11 story office building directly behind me that glares down at my patio, though, so there's that. I think it's coming with 400-1000 car parking spots (underground garage).
We've been trying to get this (currently) low-traffic, low-mph throughfare street to completely ban car traffic and be turned into pedestrian/restaurant walking only, which it was during COVID and was wonderful, so that's probably dead in the water now.