The Case Against Single-Family Zoning 

Clue for the topic of the next video: India + Le Corbusier = ???

The Cheerios analogy reminds me of a joke: There was a man in a rural area who noticed that all of the barns were painted red. Wondering why he didn't see any other colors, he asked a farmer "why are all the barns painted red?" to which the farmer replied, " because the farm supply store only sells red paint." Finding this to be odd, the man went to the farm supply store and asked "why do you only sell red paint?" to which he was told, "because farmers only ever buy red paint."

"Yellow is residential" Cities Skylines players disliked that.

I grew up in a townhouse complex that had four big communal backyards, one for about 25 houses or so. It was amazing. There were always kids to play with, and we had enough room to play things like baseball, hide and go seek, and hockey.

Me: I was raised in a single family home and enjoy them a lot. Also me: Complains and complains about sprawl, pollution, traffic and 3 hour LA commute times

I'm such a fan of mixed zoning. Walking to the grocery store and work was awesome, but not possible 90% of the time.

I brought a house with a large yard so I can spend my weekends mowing the lawn....

Single family zoning means that the government assumes that everyone has the exact same lifestyle and are of the same age. Like, there won't be any elderly, any students, any young single people, any couples without plans of getting children, any people who are single as a lifestyle choice, any creative communities where people live together, any groups of friends who share the same housing, any families of relatives that are not the nuclear family, any disabled people who need care, any people with chronic illnesses who need to live near hospital, any people who want to go out often or who have unexpected working hours, any nuclear families that have lots of hobbies that have no opportunities in the suburb, etc. Living in the suburb is boring, because there is no diversity, all the people are kind of same. This is why many hate it, beyond the car problem.

Restricting zoning so heavily to R1 really constrains the "free market" of housing developments. The choice between living in the suburbs or in a high rise apartment is a false dichotomy that's been imposed on us by our local governments for one reason or another.

I grew up in a house with a big back yard. all we ever really did with it was mow the lawn. And we were so far away from everything there was basically nothing else to do.

I've always found the R1 zoning odd. Here in Sweden most low density residential areas are a mix of single family homes and slightly larger houses with 3-5 apartments in different sizes. And you usually have a school, a grocery store and a few local businesses nearby so you don't actually need to drive of the time. Unless you live in a rural area, you rarely need to walk more than a 5-10 minutes to buy basic groceries. And there are public parks and playgrounds, so even the kids who don't live in a house with a private yard can go out and play. I'd say it's actually more family- and kid-friendly than the American R1.

A lot of good points in this video. I'll tell my experience. Even though I was born in Peru, I lived in America for my first 13 years. Lived in the typical suburbs, there I always felt trapped and isolated. After the 2009 recession and my father passing, I return to Peru in 2010. There, I lived in a modest apartment in a dense neghborhood. I truly felt free and alive. The mixed zoning was great , I could walk or take a bike and buy stuff from small businessee. I could walk to school. I made a lot of friends in the plaza park where everyone from the neghborhood would pass time. Very great feeling of community.

I always found these American areas with cookie-cutter one-family houses, where every single one looks exactly like the next, to be really creepy. Once went on a google earth adventure and ended up in one huge area with these houses, very disorineting. Like some fake-utopian dystopia out of a black mirror episode.

My family has raised kids with a big backyard. But the irony is that the backyard was the last thing we thought about.

My parents made sure to buy a house with a big yard to play in. When we grew old enough to play outside we ran straight past the yard into the adjacent park. "Backyard for the kids" my ass.

I grew up in a single family house, and i absolutely love it. On the other hand, the only transport available is your car, and you have to drive even to the grocery, which is terrible for the environment and for your health. BUT I hate having neighbors behind the wall, because usually there is no sound isolation in apartments, and no private backyards where you can chill alone. I think, this extreme zoning should be gone and replaced with mixed zoning with accessible public places, groceries, schools, where you don't have to drive all the way to buy a corn syrup

I grew up in a typical suburb with lots of R1 zoning, but now I go to college in a city and I've realized walkability makes your quality of life so much better. Businesses should be more intertwined with residential zones, as they are in cities. When things aren't all spread out you don't need to take a car everywhere. That being said, I think there's a balance in density to be achieved. Parking and pest control become a nightmare when living is too dense.

I think most people don't realize that R1 zoning has effectively made many of America's most popular neighbourhoods (e.g. streetcar suburbs) illegal. Many of those houses are actually multiplexes, but they just look like big single family houses anyway, so many people don't realize that it's impossible to build such houses in R1 zones.. R1 zoning is also a key factor in the housing crisis as it severely restricts supply. I believe Seattle recently had some success in combating rising rents by allowing "middle housing" near transit stations again.

Old American cities like Philly, Boston, DC, and NY even have dense single family development. In Philly we have dense rowhomes and duplexes and corner commercial buildings. I think rowhomes/townhouses are the best urban form. It's walkable, dense, attractive, and private. The city went through a lot of divestment through white flight but people are re-discovering the benefits of the urban form of rowhomes. Would love a video exploring the rowhomes of Philly or Baltimore

"You can't raise children without a backyard!" Me, having to share a single room rented apartament with my parents for 20 years: "Must be nice to afford to even think that way"

About that backyard argument: Cities with good planning have lots of parks, which are accessible on foot and good social meeting spaces. Parks are better for the environment than lawns because they often have trees instead of grass. Lawns are lonely places. People don’t play on their lawns. Suburbs usually have no nearby parks, and you have to drive a car to access anything. It’s better to grow up with access to parks than with a square of lawn that you never use.

Those damn Eagletonians...

Cities are complex organism. There is a demand for single family homes, duplex, apartment buildings and, forgive me Americans , even commieblocks. Different people have different needs and preferences, which does change in time. Designing a residential areas only in R1 is just the same central planning approach we, russians had in soviet union - whole cities were build with commieblocs. Both ways are extremes. European cities get that. They are mixed, efficient and beautiful.

On my street in Long Beach, which is about 500 feet long, its a mix of single family homes, apartment buildings of various style and age (mine was a Spanish style built in the 1920s), and newer condo buildings with off street parking. I felt that mix of living spaces added to the charm of living in that neighborhood.

For someone living in Europe like me I don't really understand why we even have to make a case against Single-Family Zoning

Also, those copy pasted neighbourhoods seem so damn eerie, unsettling even.

Some days ago I bought an appartment in Mexico City (now living in it), and I'm not regretting about it. I live closed to the subway, the bus and the downtown, as well as less than an hour away (30 to 40 minutes) from my job; and in general, security and public services are much better in this zone than in suburbs.

Really great video. I am from Michigan but now I live in St Petersburg, Russia. My students often ask me what I like about Russia and I always tell them the city planning (which is a hold over from Soviet times). I guess they take it for granted and dont really think about it, but to me it is really cool that no matter where you live in the city, you have access to fresh veggies, meat and fruit- it will never be more that a five minute walk. Often, just a two minute walk. Also the kindergardens / daycares will be a short walk or probably just outside of your apartment building. Coming from a suburb in Michigan, where cities are designed for car use and to get fresh food many times a car is necessary, this is a great benefit. There was this idea of micro regions in the soviet union and even the new construction in the sleeping districts of the city keeps this basic idea because it's just what people have grown to expect. Well, I really like it.

*Posh suburbanites:* "yOu'Re AlL cOmMiEs" *Also posh suburbanites:* what do you mean supply and demand should decide what gets built?

Honestly, as a single person, I hate when I look at Zillow or anything of the like because my only two options really are single-family homes, renting an apartment, or buying an overly priced condo. I would absolutely love to live in a place where I could walk or bike to my job (that SHOULD pay well enough for me to live, regardless of what the job is), places for my dog, and be able to buy groceries or have a night out. I don't want to have to rent an apartment for that. Also, as someone living rural, I remember working at the local Dollar General and finding out that it took 7 years for the company to convince the town to put one in, and the main pushback was from the itty bitty surburbian neighborhood that was right next to where they wanted to put it. They fought tooth and nail, even to this day 6 years later, to not have it because it would "ruin the look of the neighborhood". That's how deep this issue is inside the American head, where putting in a business is fought against because it ruins the "look" of a neighborhood.

In Germany a lot of people which live in big cities have "Schrebergärten" in "Kleingartenvereinen". This are special areas outside the city, where you can rent a garden.

me in cities skylines: time to rezone all residential into high-rises

30 years ago i was working in a government department supervising the development of new urban and suburban areas on the edge of a large city. What was seen as the best option was a mixture of low density single family housing with mid-density town houses along with small retail premises. In the commercial centre the ground level was shops, the next level up professional offices, and then two levels of residential apartments above them. The intent was to have suitable retail shopping within easy walk of most residential areas and to spread the professional services through the area along with the general retail options. The mixture made the new suburbs more liveable for foot traffic.

Everyone should be allowed to run a business out of the ground floor of a multi-floor property provided it's quiet.

Fun update the state of Oregon has effectively legislated an end to single family zoning in all cities in the state over 25,000 people

Having just moved back to my home town after 10 years away, many higher density homes have been built in the mean time. What hasn't happened, due to a lack of voted support, is adequate infrastructural improvements. So my two lane country roads are now two lane traffic trains of angry commuters saying "there's too many people here"

You could have also mentioned higher density allows for greater ease of kids running around the neighborhood finding other kids & lower density pressuring people to drive more miles means more accidents resulting in more injuries & deaths.

I will also make a note against r1 housing. Here in Texas, when the drought hit us for 4 years straight, many of these r1 neighborhoods have been abandoned. There are abandoned cul-de-sacs in Texas that are literally ghost towns and are now overgrown in weeds. These r1 housing projects are a waste of resources and space, the same could be said about mansions.

There's been a lot of talk about the "missing middle" here in Durham, NC, and a move toward allowing secondary units on single-family lots. I suspect one effect of this, here in the central part of the city, is more Airbnbs.

Okay, get rid of R1 zoning, but specify minimum requirements for storage space in the zoning for your multi-unit housing. Too many cheap condos are being built that have no place to store stuff. I had a coworker who bought a condo and found there was no place to keep his golf clubs. He asked another coworker to store the golf clubs in the attic of his house. For nine months in the mid-1990s, I lived in a high-rise across the Potomac from Washington, DC. I had two bikes that sat in the middle of my living room because there was no other place to put them. On another occasion, I spent a weekend in a hotel outside of Washington, DC. Across the street was a residential high-rise building. Every balcony was in use for overflow storage. This included gas grills, bikes, and even a kayak. If you go into the typical American garage, you might or might not find a car. Often you will find bikes, canoes, a table saw, and/or a drill press. Regardless of the type of housing, the residents need room for all their stuff.

This presentation is exactly why I appreciate your channel.

As a single adult who doesn't want a family. I think we need more nice midrise buildings for someone like me rather than large family homes. Gardens are nice and all but I'm an internet person myself so as long as my place has good internet I'm good.

*laughs in unincorporated wilderness acreage* Seeing neighbors? Gross.

My biggest issue with other forms of housing is that I am too restricted. I want to be up at 3AM watching a movie with my sound system cranked up. In the suburb I will have a hard time disturbing my neighbours. I am in a condo right now and I have to be careful about things like that. I was assembling Ikea furniture one night (10pm) and had to hammer in dowels and stuff. I would have hated being my downstairs neighbour that night.

HA! I told my parents all those hours spent playing Sim City back in the 90s would be worth while!

6:44 Eagleton Dave, great Parks and Recreation reference

I totally agree. I like how in Tokoyo the owner can build anything they want on their property.

I personally love my familys big house that we dont have to share with anyone else but im intrested to see the benefits of communal living . i personally think we need a balance but definitely we need to make suburbs more dense and actually walkable

As someone living in a very densely populated city, where due to lack of restriction and vision developers built mostly high-rise apartments because that's what brings them maximum profit, I would like to say that R1 zoning seems like a dream. I can see the benefit of mid-rise buildings where they offer a nice balance so that public transit makes sense and still maintain a familiar, warm feeling. But please, never promote high rise buildings. It feels like a dystopian nightmare, where you can be barely see any greenery and sunlight.

It is weird to watch it as a european, we never understand how you can waste so much space?! I live in Belgium which is really small so our cities have to be really compact. And they are. You have everything close to your flat, everything is in walkable distance and create really vibrant neighbourhoods with both best classic architecture and amazing modern constructions😊

Middle rise houses in Europe looks beatiful

I'd much rather have a park everyone can walk to easily than yards in a suburb.

I live in Turkey and my neighborhood is very pleasant, with 5 story middle-rise to 15 story high rise residential apartment blocks, with a lot of green space, car parks, schools etc in between ^^ p.s There are basically no R1 here lol

I’m going to be honest as the nephew of a landlord and as the sibling of an urbanite that, from my own experiences of testimony, the only common complaint I’ve ever heard against apartment buildings & complexes is the noise control. Nothing else. Maintenance neglect as the second most common is (usual) but also circumstantial and based on the quality of staff, and control over the abilities on the inside is just a nuisance. You don’t *have* to own a pet, and you don’t *have* to put up a picture frame; it’s just nice to have that choice. Nobody complains about the inarguable efficiency of putting 30 people into the equivalent of 10 houses in materials, nobody complains about the views of being 70 feet high, and nobody complains about the conveniences that typically come with apartments, such as “free” utilities, small yet usable gyms, and game rooms. It’s always the noise. We figure out a material that truly blocks out needless noise (but not all noise, please be able to hear your neighbor screaming in emergency to be able to help), and there goes most of the functional case against apartments instead of suburban sprawls. Great video 👍🏼 I always love these.

Higher density housing actually makes people focus on public amenities vs trying to have everything on your own property. Instead of having a large back yard with a swing and slide for your kids, you take a walk to the local park and use the play equipment there. Instead of having parties at your massive house and backyard, you hire the local community hall, bowling alley, restaurant or bar (etc. etc.) depending on what type of event. Higher density housing promotes public facilities from restaurants and entertainment businesses to parks, whether public or privately run. Which makes for more interesting neighbourhoods.

I grew up in a suburb and I never saw kids playing on the yards that are supposed to be great for kids.

I have a house with a big back yard, I find it to be a burden to take care of. I'm also tired of taking care of a car. It's really hard to get around in my city with public transportation, and pretty dangerous to ride a bike.

*patiently waits for cities skylines play through*

I actually haven't lived in much single family housing. Most of the homes I've lived in have been part of some kind of complex or duplex.

I grew up on a farm 20 miles away from a small town (approximately 2500 residents). I am now a college student, and it is really nice to be able to walk or use public transportation to get anywhere I need to go. My family owns several cars since we need them to get anywhere, and they offered to let me bring one. I declined. Everywhere I need to go is within walking distance of either where I live. If not, it's within walking distance of a bus stop. Having a car here is just unnecessary and would be an impractical expense. I believe that we as a society are moving away from financially insensible things, so it's a matter of time before these space-hogging land uses become less common.

The case against R1 could have been stronger if it had included information about walk-able spaces, public transportation, and accessibility.

As someone who wants to get into property development, it's amazing how many people are against upzoning to make cities more affordable.

As a person who doesn’t live in the us I can’t imagine what it’s like living in a house not in an apartment

I don't like these types of houses as it forces people to use cars to go essentially anywhere. Mixed zoning is better as many places like convenience stores would be in a walking distance

Watching these videos make me look out my window and imagine redoing my whole city from the sewers to the skyscrapers.

I've had enough of cramped city living to last me the rest of my life (2 and a half years in Osaka and Tokyo). I live in an isolated small town now and I will never choose a dense urban setting ever again. That being said, I understand that not everyone is an introvert like me. I don't want to be that close to my neighbors. I don't want to be chained to a mass transit schedule to get to where I want or need to go. But there are many people for whom that sort of life is not just appealing, but a dream come true. Most big cities would probably do better to change their R1 zoning and re-lay streetcar tracks and the like. I'll just never be the sort of person who would go to live in any of those places.

I've watched a lot of your videos. I've enjoyed all of them, but this one has is my favorite so far. I did my senior core project on the impact of zoning on inequity and strongly agree with the case you made in this video. Excellent job

In my opinion the single family homes problem at least in USA and Canada is that the zone is very far from the city and are car dependent, in my country Dominican Republic and in most Latin American countries there are single family homes near business, i live in a single family home but i can walk to the school, movie, bookstore, pharmacy, the office where i work is just 10 minutes walking. Even in the vey zone besides houses there are apartment buildings, the houses have very diferent desings.

Something that I was thinking about (this is a midroll comment so it might already be addressed): The "angry comment guy" mentioned how you can't have children without a yard but I was thinking about how the lack of independent transportation created by these massive R1 zoning issues could actually be worse for children. As you pointed out, plenty of people have kids in the cities and I'm sure those kids can actually walk around and have some agency in transportation whereas the kids who live in these single-family zones also most likely would be stuck in a car-centric area where walking around is dangerous and they have to be driven everywhere. The lack of travel independence and agency here has been linked to several other problems with raising kids in these areas, so mr "angry comment guy" what if the cities were actually better for raising kids in (or more likely some mixed-use development that still had some of the greenery while maintaining walkability)?

Tokyo is probably the best case for removing such restrictions

Amenties likes schools, shops etc should be included in residential areas. This is the case in Ireland as most suburbs are developed around existing villages. Our housing estates are more dense as well than in other countries. Many Irish towns are walkable.

I wish my county would do this. Rockland has 326k people, 45 mins from NYC, and yet almost everyone lives in single family homes.

We already have a shortage of affordable single-family homes. All I see around me in suburban NY are Section 8, multifamily townhouses and condos. The houses newer than 20yr old that do exist are all $600k+. I want a: Garage Front Yard Backyard Porch Basement Driveway and LAND OWNERSHIP Very few multi-family condo/townhouse developments have any of this. Those that do are in an HOA and limit what can be done on your own property. EDIT: my wife and I currently live in a condo. This is the first home we ever purchased for $203.5k in 2017. It's fine for very young, but we also need affordable HOMES for growing families. We're already feeling cramped here.

Great editing on this one! I have never had interest in owning a single family home with a yard. Multifamily housing appeals to me so much more, but maybe it's because I was raised in a condo in Chicago. I love the idea of more town/row/patio homes with a tiny yard, especially near public transit options, but that might be my 'Xennial' showing.

Live in Seattle. The city is densifying so fast-it’s nonsense to have single family zoning so close to Seattle’s very urban urban center.

I love Japan's zoning for the most part build what you need where you need it rather than large amount of houses

The case against zoning.

Personally I have reservations against sharing walls with strangers. I don't want for myself to have to manage noise at such a level that a person that I have never interacted with complains about me playing music through a speaker in property that I am paying to live in. The biggest thing about single family housing for me is that ability to do what you like with the property, which is also why I dislike restrictive HOAs for imposing extra fees and preventing landscaping and other changes to the property in question. If I want to play my accordion I shouldn't have to deal with, as a hypothetical example, the night-shift worker next door complaining about a problem that's caused by the intersection of different schedules and close-proximity caused by denser housing.

thank you for such great content!

This was soo good! Thank you for this!

I’m very happy minneapolis got rid of r1. I hated living in the suburbs and am happy in the residential area of the city right between minneapolis and St Paul where I’m not too far from anything - downside is I’m in an apartment complex with increasing rent. I love the area, but change is slow, and all the houses around are from R1 days. I hope eventually it transforms and becomes even more walkable and i can eventually get into a townhouse or condo There is a sign of change though, right across the street a brand new trailer park has been built up. Right in the middle of Northeast. I know they have “negative” reputation bc classism and poverty but honestly it looks pretty cool and nice

This is what the US, Canada, and Australia make them different from the rest of the world especially when compared to communities here in Southeast Asia. Here in Philippines, we have our typical Barangays (small government unit) where you can have all you want in within 15-minute walk - convenient (mostly Sari-sari) stores, Talipapa’s (tiny wet markets), schools, churches, salons, coffee shops, fast-food chains, etc. Yes, it’s not ideal for some, but it how it works for thriving communities even for those in more developed Asian countries like Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea. It seems that culture of individualism greatly affects the zoning legislation for these western countries.

I love the effort you put into this video I love the switching between characters

I really enjoyed this one! :-) also it was very informative. Thank you for sharing this with all of us!

This is a tough video to make, considering 75% of all Americans watching this video grew up in an R1 style home in the burbs, as did I. Hard to not give some push back because I loved my childhood in the suburbs, but you did make great points so I can’t really speak 😂

Norfolk, Virginia just did away with single family zoning!

What a fun change up in the format. Thank you so much for taking the time to carefully cover such important topics in an entertaining way!

I loved your content, I always imagined these urban planning dynamics on RU-vid, you made my dream come true :) Since Brazil, a hug

I think you missed one good argument. When it came to children, you basically just said 'living in a suburb isnt that bad' Where as there are very good arguments as to why suburbs are very bad for children. Due to their car centric nature, and the fact that kids cant drive til 16 usually, it leads to isolation and complete dependence on their parents, which in turn leads to helicopter parenting.

Your country continent still big enough for single family houses i guess, for me it's just a dream getting big yard because tiny building in my place is attached like townhouses and it's more like duplexes in a row

You didn’t really touch on the most important argument against single family zoning, which is that suburbs are currently heavily subsidized by federal grants to build and maintain the infrastructure, if people actually had to foot the bill for their own infrastructure, then most people living in the suburbs now wouldn’t be able to afford to stay. Denser housing has less infrastructure that is supporting more people so it’s actually sustainable.

Great video as always! R1 zoning is so archaic. Can't wait for your case against lawns!! :P

It's so weird to live in a place where you have to get on a car just to buy some food, get to school or a park. All I gonna write may sound impossible to an average US citizen. I live in Russia, in a “dormitory” district in the *outskirts* of a city of half a million people. Most houses are 5 to 9 stories, some districts have higher buildings (12, 14 and higher, not ghettos!). I can do a lot of things without having to get in a car. I don't even have one, neither can I even drive (no kidding, I can't tell brakes from accelerator). I don't need it cuz everything is in a walkable distance: 1 to 10 minutes’ walk from door to door: a few supermarkets, bakery-cafes, a pizza place, barbershops, hairdressers’, groceries, a pizza cafe, a photo and photocopy center, schools (ages 7 thru 16), kindergartens (ages 3 thru 6), a state polyclinic for children (a kind of hospital with general pediatricians, specialists, diagnosis and testing facilities, daycare, etc etc), a market, a park-forest where you can rent bikes, skis, skates and tons of other inventory for outdoor activities. A couple of state post offices. 10 to 20 minutes: more shops of various kinds, cafes, general schools, kindergartens and some other stuff from above. Plus: a polyclinic for adults (general therapists, specialists, diagnostics, daycare treatment). Private hobby studios for kids and adults. A State Palace for Children and Youth where kids can do sports and hobbies with tutors (some are free of charge, some are just cheap). An amusement park with rides and shops where you can rent bikes, skis etc etc). A couple of gyms with swimming pools. A big river with a well developed embankment, a yacht club, horse riding school... 20 to 30 minutes: some more of the stuff from above. Plus: an organ hall, a couple of cinemas, a couple of huge shopping malls. I'm tired of listing, I could go on and on scanning just the area within 20 minutes from my home. Most of the time I don't have to go by car. I can just walk. When in a hurry or a place is far away, I can afford a taxi or jump on public transport. Our public transport is far from ideal but good enough. I can only really complain after 9pm and fully rely on taxi after 10pm though I often prefer to just walk back home if it doesn't take more than 30 minutes. We do have problems, we don't live in a paradise but we have a lot of things within a walkable distance. I think most people living in my town could write the same comment listing tons of stuff where they can walk to do the things they need to do daily. The places are not perfect of course but I can't imagine having to have a car for daily routines. We do have R1s but I personally wouldn't like to live in one, whether in my city or in the States. They may be cheaper to buy but they're more expensive to own both in terms of money and time. And owning a car is a pain in the neck too: mandatory regular checkups (not for free!), fines (if you're not an ideal driver), parking space, traffic jams... Arrrghh! Hailing a taxi is easier and cheaper. Upd: Most of the high-rises built in the USSR stand pretty far away from each other so that they don't shadow each other. Thee problem is actually with some small shops that might get too close to nearby houses, but they haven't become a huge issue though it's a bit alarming. Newer high-rises are built with commercial premises on the first (i.e. ground floor) so there's no need to build small shops that block streets and views.

From what I've witnessed, some developers are choosing designs that prioritize one bedroom or studio units in cities, to maximize rent production per square foot. Multi bedroom units are fewer and farther between. The competition for luxurious amenities to attract tenants demands more expensive designs, adding costs that working class families can't afford. The American population is still growing quickly in cities, but since so many young people remain single into their 30s now, they choose to split units with roommates instead of spouses. Surely the private sector is not going to solve this issue in an equitable way. It falls on the federal government to intervene with a mandate to construct housing that precludes R1, to allow any working American to build equity in a home they choose.

Been watching for videos for over a year. Love what you're doing Dave.

Couldn't agree more. Fantastic video, as always!

Best way to make a case for something. Write your opposition’s script.

I think the single-family zoning part is mostly OK - what really escapes me is the minimum land size the plot has to be. Down here nearly all homes are single-family yet we don't have oversized rooms and oversized lawns. Most houses are two stories all the way to the plot border because that's all there is - they often starts off as being single-story and they didn't quite span the plot, but people build more and more additions to their homes to accomodate a growing family. Due to increasing land prices (and house prices) now some downtown houses of larger styles (what used to be utilized only by one family) might be utilized by two families or more. I might say that it might not even require dropping R1 zones - just a relaxation of the lot size and setback rules and the amount of families to live in such dwellings could be enough to make sure that they start to become more densely populated. I've often compared the population density in a US suburb and here - honestly the suburb densities there equals rural areas here where houses are still interrupted by paddy fields !

I live in a village, close to the city, in an European country. Most houses in my neighborhood are 2 stories max. The roads are narrow, 2 cars barely crossing each other. Developers came, bought land an built 4 stories block of flats with not sufficient parking spaces, not upgrading infrastructure like roads, creating a garbage problem for the lack of proper space to store it until next week when the truck picks up the garbage. It's a nightmare for all of us that invested in our own homes that a huge build is 3 meters away from your propertie. in the next neighborhood the built 13 stories blocks of flats. The traffic became so worse that now it takes us 45 minutes to reach the city when only 3 years ago it took us 10 minutes.

Great video. I live in a side-by-side duplex on the very edge of an R1 zone so shops, hospitals, parks are just about 100m away. The reason we found this attractive is because we didn't want a huge house buried in the suburbs with only other houses around. Our block (the one at the edge of the R1) consists mostly of side by sides and they are always the ones that sell the fastest when any house goes up for sale specifically because they are more integrated with the other zones and not so uniform and/or buried so deep in the suburbs with nothing else around. I agree with your video.