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Comment by solidsnack9000

5 hours ago

A real democracy requires local control for some things, but what makes zoning one of those things?

> A real democracy requires local control for some things, but what makes zoning one of those things?

Because it's one of the biggest things that affects your local environment?

  • So it's the "bigness" of it?

    But aren't there other salient factors? Is energy policy any less "big" than zoning in its effect on your local environment? The thing is, it's just really hard to get certain policies to work right when they are set at too small a scale -- even if they have a big effect at a small scale.

    When I consider the housing situation, I am starting to think that land use policy seems to be that kind of thing.

    Ultimately, cities are granted a charter by the state. It's not a given that they can control zoning, the location of people's garage doors, &c. We can think about these things and decide.