Outcomes of No-Fault Divorce

[Ken]

It is not an exaggeration to say that cities like Barcelona or Paris have achieved high urban density without tall buildings. There are very few tall buildings in any residential part of either city. Unlike say New York or Miami. Meaning you don't need tall buildings to have dense urban neighborhoods housing lots of people.

It was obviously an exaggeration to say there are NO tall buildings in Barcelona or Paris. There are some and they are mostly all office towers not residential buildings. But most of residential Barcelona and Paris look like this rather than Manhattan.




And the fact that they are actual cities rather than mile upon mile of single family housing doesn't turn them into 3rd world slums. To the contrary. People from around the planet flock to both cities because they have lively safe streets for pedestrians. That is part of their appeal. Accommodating more people doesn't mean you become either Manhattan or Cairo.

None of this contradicts my main point which is that if we want to build a society that encourages marriage and families by making it possible to afford housing, especially on one income, then we need to be much more creative about how we build housing in this country and not turn out cities into nothing but playgrounds for the very rich and very poor. There are reasons why young families are fleeing big cities and it is mostly to do with affordability and availability of housing. Not exclusively, but that is the biggest driver.

Of course this is a much bigger issue in places like California and other big cities and fast growing parts of the country than it is in say rural West Virginia where there are other issues such as jobs and the economy rather than housing that is holding people back. It is also a bigger problem in liberal cities and states than conservative ones for a whole lot of reasons both good and bad.

Also, accommodating higher densities in the centers of our big cities so more families can find homes isn't going to change suburbia or rural America in the slightest. Allowing higher density in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle isn't going to affect Josh in his rural Ohio double wide in the slightest (I seem to recall that is what he said he owned). If anything it will result in less people spilling over to rural areas. So I'm not sure why the resistance.

But if we want to encourage marriage and families there is a whole lot more we can do in a whole lot of areas starting with housing.

[ohio jones]

I fail to understand why you think young families need to be stuffed into tiny apartments in high rises.

Perhaps the reason is, because Ken doesn't think that. He certainly hasn't said anything to indicate that he thinks any such thing.

The tiny apartments (whether in ADUs or high rises) would be better suited for those who have been through a no-fault divorce. Although calling anything in California "no-fault" seems to be a contradiction.

[Josh]

This is the Sunset District directly south of Golden Gate Park. That is the park in the distance. Every last block zoned for single family housing exclusively. Yes under recent changes to CA law they can now put up ADUs in their back yards but most don't have big enough back yards to do that. What they can't do is put up an actual apartment building or condo building anywhere in this photo, even under the recent changes.

This isn't accurate about CA's new ADU law (well, "new", it's 4 years old now.)

Any unit can be redeveloped into 4 units. The surface area per unit per story is a minimum of 1,200 square feet, 0.02 acres. (So a 3 story single family home on a tiny, tiny 0.02 acre parcel could become 3 units.)

ADUs can have as many stories as an existing home (which are typically 2 stories in that area, some of them 3.) If they are ½ mile from a public transportation stop, they can always be at least 2 stories. Virtually everything in your pictures would qualify.

A 2,400 square foot lot (0.06 acres) wouldn't even need to do that since the yard could have an ADU built on it. And the ADU law requires that cities drop any blocks to permitting, etc. - they don't have a mechanism to enforce stopping building them anymore. And it also requires minimal setback etc provisions (essentially, the ADU can follow the same setbacks as the existing SFH even if that SFH's setbacks etc were grandfathered in).

And now the ADUs can be converted into condos and sold off. An SFH can be converted into a duplex, triplex, or quadplex and parcelled off and each parcel sold. If the different units are on different stories it would have to be converted into a condo or coop obviously but a more recently passed law mandates that that has to be allowed.

So, I will repeat myself: there is no single family zoning in California anymore. And yes, they can put up apartment buildings or condos on an existing single family property up to 4 units. And yes, they can be split off and sold, or rented out. (The ADU and JADU laws also mandate that a city can't prevent a propery owner from renting out ADUs or JADUs.)

Exceptions exist for extreme fire safety zones and in rural preservation areas. Presumably you aren't concerned that there isn't enough density in either of those?

[Josh]

And the fact that they are actual cities rather than mile upon mile of single family housing doesn't turn them into 3rd world slums. To the contrary. People from around the planet flock to both cities because they have lively safe streets for pedestrians. That is part of their appeal. Accommodating more people doesn't mean you become either Manhattan or Cairo.

The last time I was in S.F., the street was definitely lively, but I wouldn't describe it as "safe". Which is why families tend to be fleeing cities.

It doesn't work at all to demand that people live in dense cities and not rely on cars but instead walk everywhere or use public transportation, if the streets themselves and public transportation becomes a den of drug use, people openly smoking marijuana or hard drugs like crack or meth, violence, muggings, and assaults. People rightly flee those situations and start to look for more defensive forms which include:

- Large tracts of single-family homes which means criminals are not idly milling around
- Local law enforcement which can remove people idly milling around residential areas up to no good
- Ability to stay in a locked car when transiting unsafe areas, which means less time exposed as a pedestrian who can be more easily mugged/assaulted
- Vast seas of parking in commercial areas so one can quickly get from a car to safely inside of a business
- Not needing to rely on public transportation.

If you don't want those defensive urban forms, you need to fix the crime and drugs problem first.

[Ken]

This is the Sunset District directly south of Golden Gate Park. That is the park in the distance. Every last block zoned for single family housing exclusively. Yes under recent changes to CA law they can now put up ADUs in their back yards but most don't have big enough back yards to do that. What they can't do is put up an actual apartment building or condo building anywhere in this photo, even under the recent changes.

This isn't accurate about CA's new ADU law (well, "new", it's 4 years old now.)

Any unit can be redeveloped into 4 units. The surface area per unit per story is a minimum of 1,200 square feet, 0.02 acres. (So a 3 story single family home on a tiny, tiny 0.02 acre parcel could become 3 units.)

ADUs can have as many stories as an existing home (which are typically 2 stories in that area, some of them 3.) If they are ½ mile from a public transportation stop, they can always be at least 2 stories. Virtually everything in your pictures would qualify.

A 2,400 square foot lot (0.06 acres) wouldn't even need to do that since the yard could have an ADU built on it. And the ADU law requires that cities drop any blocks to permitting, etc. - they don't have a mechanism to enforce stopping building them anymore. And it also requires minimal setback etc provisions (essentially, the ADU can follow the same setbacks as the existing SFH even if that SFH's setbacks etc were grandfathered in).

And now the ADUs can be converted into condos and sold off. An SFH can be converted into a duplex, triplex, or quadplex and parcelled off and each parcel sold. If the different units are on different stories it would have to be converted into a condo or coop obviously but a more recently passed law mandates that that has to be allowed.

So, I will repeat myself: there is no single family zoning in California anymore. And yes, they can put up apartment buildings or condos on an existing single family property up to 4 units. And yes, they can be split off and sold, or rented out. (The ADU and JADU laws also mandate that a city can't prevent a propery owner from renting out ADUs or JADUs.)

Exceptions exist for extreme fire safety zones and in rural preservation areas. Presumably you aren't concerned that there isn't enough density in either of those?

If you read the actual news coverage and analysis of what is happening in California you will find that this change of law has had very little effect for a whole lot of reasons not the least of which is that cities have thrown up other non-zoning obstacles to redevelopment of single family homes including endless obstructionist environmental reviews and intentional permit delays. For example. Why California's New Zoning Law Hasn't Led to More Housing:
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-go ... 00527.html

It is a start to be sure. But they have a VERY long way to go until California cities actually make any meaningful progress on their chronic housing shortages.

[ohio jones]

It was obviously an exaggeration to say there are NO tall buildings in Barcelona or Paris. There are some and they are mostly all office towers not residential buildings. But most of residential Barcelona and Paris look like this rather than Manhattan.

Half of the 20 tallest buildings in Barcelona are hotels, not office towers. Is that "mostly all" or is it just more hyperbole?

And the fact that they are actual cities rather than mile upon mile of single family housing doesn't turn them into 3rd world slums. To the contrary. People from around the planet flock to both cities because they have lively safe streets for pedestrians.

I don't think you've been to Paris, either. Even the touristy areas are increasingly slummy these days.

[Josh]

If you read the actual news coverage and analysis of what is happening in California you will find that this change of law has had very little effect for a whole lot of reasons not the least of which is that cities have thrown up other non-zoning obstacles to redevelopment of single family homes including endless obstructionist environmental reviews and intentional permit delays. For example. Why California's New Zoning Law Hasn't Led to More Housing:
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-go ... 00527.html

It is a start to be sure. But they have a VERY long way to go until California cities actually make any meaningful progress on their chronic housing shortages.

I don't really follow the news but I do know people who live in CA and there is a big boom in SFHs being turned into ADUs that get rented out, which is my main context for it, including in very hoity toity parts of Silicon Valley.

The fact that some cities aren't complying with state law doesn't change the fact that it is the law. There is no single family zoning in California anymore. That's what the law says.

From the article,

Nearly a year later, she said she feels farther away than ever from making it happen. After accounting for California’s exorbitant construction costs and interest rates

That has zip all to do with zoning.

But under SB 9, the city has not yet seen the same enthusiasm. Although the city moved to eliminate single-family zoning ahead of the statewide measure, Sacramento homeowners have only submitted 17 applications for lot splits and additional units, of which 13 have preliminary approval. Only one of those applicants has received a building permit but no construction has begun, according to city records.

It sounds like people in Sacramento prefer their single family lots, and interest in converting them into additional units is very low. Building permits have zip all to do with zoning. (If you want to argue against having building permits at all, that's a different discussion, but has nothing to do with single family homes. Building permits are required to single family homes too.)

[Ken]

And the fact that they are actual cities rather than mile upon mile of single family housing doesn't turn them into 3rd world slums. To the contrary. People from around the planet flock to both cities because they have lively safe streets for pedestrians. That is part of their appeal. Accommodating more people doesn't mean you become either Manhattan or Cairo.

The last time I was in S.F., the street was definitely lively, but I wouldn't describe it as "safe". Which is why families tend to be fleeing cities.

It doesn't work at all to demand that people live in dense cities and not rely on cars but instead walk everywhere or use public transportation, if the streets themselves and public transportation becomes a den of drug use, people openly smoking marijuana or hard drugs like crack or meth, violence, muggings, and assaults. People rightly flee those situations and start to look for more defensive forms which include:

- Large tracts of single-family homes which means criminals are not idly milling around
- Local law enforcement which can remove people idly milling around residential areas up to no good
- Ability to stay in a locked car when transiting unsafe areas, which means less time exposed as a pedestrian who can be more easily mugged/assaulted
- Vast seas of parking in commercial areas so one can quickly get from a car to safely inside of a business
- Not needing to rely on public transportation.

If you don't want those defensive urban forms, you need to fix the crime and drugs problem first.

No one is demanding anyone live anywhere. That is a ridiculous strawman argument. Increasing the density of big cities so that more families can find housing isn't going to affect your life in rural Ohio in the slightest. And allowing increased density in big cities isn't going to affect suburban and rural America in the slightest. There will still be endless sprawling single family subdivisions all across America. And people who want that sort of thing can move into neighborhoods that mandate it through non-zoning methods like HOAs. Most suburban subdivisions these days are actually governed by HOAs which are more restrictive than zoning in most cases.

In the end, regulations have consequences and real predictable effects. Take our previous comparison of the big cities of Houston and San Francisco.

Houston has much fewer restrictions on housing and development compared to San Francisco and as a consequence, housing is 4x cheaper in Houston than San Francisco. That isn't random coincidence, it is the consequence of policy choices.

Likewise, Houston (and Texas) have far less restrictive firearms regulations than San Francisco (and California). As a consequence Texas has 3x more guns per capita than California and Houston has double the murder rate and nearly double the violent crime rate as San Francisco.

None of this is random chance. It is the logical consequence of differing policy choices.

It is honestly no different from the subject of this thread which is that relaxing divorce laws led to more divorces. Policy choices have consequences.

[RZehr]

In the end, regulations have consequences and real predictable effects. Take our previous comparison of the big cities of Houston and San Francisco.

Houston has much fewer restrictions on housing and development compared to San Francisco and as a consequence, housing is 4x cheaper in Houston than San Francisco. That isn't random coincidence, it is the consequence of policy choices.

Likewise, Houston (and Texas) have far less restrictive firearms regulations than San Francisco (and California). As a consequence Texas has 3x more guns per capita than California and Houston has double the murder rate and nearly double the violent crime rate as San Francisco.

None of this is random chance. It is the logical consequence of differing policy choices.

I wonder how this cause and effect applies to drug laws and use, and petty crime in these two cities. And the early days of sexual liberation laws of the past.

[Josh]

I suspect the reason San Francisco housing costs more than Houston is because there is a lot more demand for it; if it's 4X as expensive, it's because it's 4X as desirable.

For example, in my line of work, a San Francisco based salary would easily be double (or more) a Houston based salary. Even with the cost of housing, SF would be a better deal.

SF used to be cheap (and it had zoning then). A lot more people moved to California than TX, probably because of a preference for the weather.