Comment by savanaly
11 days ago
>how ingenious Japan’s system of zoning is
I'm only barely familiar with it so I ask this in good faith: is it really ingenious or is it just more permissive? My bias/priors are that the simpler and truer statement is: it can't be overstated how beneficial more permissive zoning laws are to a society.
There are other aspects beyond simply being more permissive. I recall reading for example that property transfer tax is remarkably less on bare land, enough so that when travelling in Japan you will regularly notice bare lots for sale, as it is beneficial for the seller to tear down a lot before they sell it. This sort of thing encourages churn of housing, and coupled with liberal zoning, enables an accelerated increase in denser building. Tbh it probably encourages lower construction costs since more people are doing construction.
IMO in this whole conversation, whether discussing any jurisdiction not just japan, impacts of zoning is an over emphasized and tax policy under emphasized (ie. almost never discussed).
Property taxes on land zoned for residential use are 6x more expensive if left bare. That’s why Japan has an akiya plague, because even a dilapidated building will keep taxes down.
I couldn’t find a more general article so here’s an example from a generic small town council.
https://www.city.inagi.tokyo.jp/en/faq/kurashi/1001633/10016...
You're right. I'm not sure how I got mislead or misremembered the dynamic here. I thought there was a specific clear tax benefit but doesn't seem so.
There are tax benefits for new buildings for a limited time so maybe that's what I was thinking about and became confused.
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I have a hard time believing that a tax code that incentives destruction in any capacity is a good thing.
If the land is more valuable without a structure the current owner has natural incentive to do that, or someone else has incentive to buy, demolish and re-list.
From what I remember, Japanese zoning allows small shops (there's a size limit) in any residential zone.
That means no car trips when you run out of bread or milk.
Smartest property of that zoning system IMO.
Fwiw that’s what we have in Germany, unless you live in remote places. You always have a Lidl, Aldi, or REWE you can walk or bike to.
No idea what our local zoning laws are
Even the smallest Lidl, Aldi, or REWE are not small shops in the sense meant here.
Not really the same thing. They're much larger already than most stores you'd see in urban Japan.
Think more in terms of small convenience stores ("Spätis" with daily necessities) everywhere. Typical distance to a store is maybe 500-1000m in Germany. In dense areas of Japanese cities it's closer to one store every 100m-200m.
So in Germany it'd be a 10 minute walk, while in Japan most of your "walk" would be getting downstairs.
The flipside of that is that selection is going to be limited compared to what you'd find in Germany.
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I also wonder how much the pressure filled culture of not standing out has something to do with this. My impression is Japanese are under a lot more pressure to not abuse the permissiveness of the zoning laws.
If a law allows a store up to a certain size, and someone builds a store of that size, has the law been abused?
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What do you mean by “abuse”?
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You haven’t lived until you have experienced the Japanese Kombini (convenience store).
There's a lot of places to get decent fried chicken, onigiri, and snacks. It's just 7 and I holdings still let's the US 711 suck
A huge amount of residential homes are actually in light industry zoned areas. I learned this surprising fact here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk
> I'm only barely familiar with it so I ask this in good faith: is it really ingenious or is it just more permissive?
Let's start from the glaring problem: The purpose of the US zoning system was institutionalized racism to keep the "undesirables" out rather than anything having to do with development management. Once you realize that, all of the misfeatures (NIMBY, excessive permitting, sclerotic bureaucracy, public participation) make obvious sense.
Practically every zoning system would be better than that.
That's a big part of it. They also do zoning mostly at the federal level, meaning local opposition isn't relevant.
This is a fair question. In short: Permissive. If you want to learn more, talk with any LLM about it. There are a bazillion YouTube videos and blog posts discussing the matter to no end.
Here is a good YouTube video to you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5pPcV54kiQ
Sometimes permissive zoning laws don’t actually encourage positive urban development outcomes.
Example: Texas
Zoning has to both exist and be well-designed.
Texas zoning isn't nearly as permissive as Japan's. Setbacks are a big added requirement. Minimum parking requirements too though that is changing.
But it would not be legal to build japanese neighbourhoods in Texas.
Texas zoning is only “permissive” relative to other states. Relative to Japan it’s quite restrictive.
I bet you'd see natural market driven concentration around rail stations in Texas too, if they had a useful rail network.
Dallas-Area Rapid Transit (DART) member cities all had to develop 25-year plans for denser development around station sites as a condition of their membership, if that’s what you mean by “natural”.
You might be surprised, look at Dallas. They have a pretty extensive rail network.
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