Freedom

Ezra's damn right about this. Go to pretty much any populated part of the United States, buy some land, and try to build something on it and you'll find that there are a lot of land-use restrictions in place. Some of these rules are good, some of them are bad (on balance I'd say we're over-regulated in this regard) but they're really all-pervasive. Then along comes the LA City Council to say you can't open a new fast food restaurant in South LA and libertarians and Will Saletan are freaking out. It's about freedom, damnit.

Well, it is on some level, but this is hardly unique. Is Saletan for abolishing liquor license regulations? Maybe he is. I don't think that's a crazy position but that would be a radical change in the way we do business. Banning fast food outlets, by contrast, is very much in line with the status quo. And though it might shock Saletan to hear about it, there are lots of upscale towns and neighborhoods all across the country that do the same thing.

Meanwhile, according to Wikipedia Saletan lives in Chevy Chase Maryland. According to the zoning regulations I downloaded from the Chevy Chase town website, it is illegal in Saletan's town to build a house on a lot of fewer than 6,000 square feet. It is also illegal to build a house that covers more than 35 percent of a lot. [UPDATE: I originally posted some erroneous math here, which you can read about in comments but I've now deleted]. This makes housing more expensive than it would be if you were allowed to use the land more intensive, or if you were allowed to slice lots up into smaller homes.

I'm pretty skeptical that these proposed South LA regulations will do any good. But it's not unique or unusual for land use regulations to exist. And working class people around the country suffer dramatically larger concrete harms from the sort of commonplace suburbanist regulations that Saletan's been living with, without apparent complaint, in Chevy Chase. Those kind of regulations are bad for the environment, bad for public health, and serve to use the power of the state to redistribute upwards. So if you're going to rail against land use regulations, maybe pick the ones that really hurt people.

Comments

I know you didn't post it on Wikipedia and its not your fault, but the fact that it's so easy to find out where the guy lives makes my trick knee act up. Kinda creepy.

Posted by Freddie | August 1, 2008 10:37 AM

I don't think you can conclude, from what you wrote, that the "smallest dwelling you're allowed to build, in other words, is a 2,100 square foot dwelling on a 6,000 square foot lot." That's the largest building you're allowed to build on a 6,000 square foot lot.

Posted by minderbender | August 1, 2008 10:42 AM

"it is illegal in Saletan's town to build a house on a lot of fewer than 6,000 square feet. It is also illegal to build a house that covers more than 35 percent of a lot. The smallest dwelling you're allowed to build, in other words, is a 2,100 square foot dwelling on a 6,000 square foot lot."

This doesn't follow, if you are getting 2,100 sq.ft. based on 35% of the lot size --- it is 'foot print of no more than 35% of lot size', not a minimum square footage of living space. I'm pretty sure houses under 2,100 sq. ft. are allowed. You might want to check.

Posted by stefan | August 1, 2008 10:43 AM

It is also illegal to build a house that covers more than 35 percent of a lot. The smallest dwelling you're allowed to build, in other words, is a 2,100 square foot dwelling on a 6,000 square foot lot. Needless to say, that'll make housing a good deal more expensive than if you were allowed to build three 2,000 square foot houses on your 6,000 square foot lot.

I hate to be nudge, Matthew, but either you meant "less" rather than "more" or that passage doesn't add up -- literally. None of the three 2000 square-foot house would be in violation of the law as you stated it: each would occupy 33.3% or less.

Posted by Roberto | August 1, 2008 10:44 AM

I don't think your math works out here, Matt. If you have a 6000 square foot lot, and you can't build on more than 35% of it, then you could presumably build a house anywhere from 0 to 2100 square feet, but not larger than that. Unless you meant less than 35% was illegal.

Posted by Adam | August 1, 2008 10:44 AM

"The smallest dwelling you're allowed to build, in other words, is a 2,100 square foot dwelling on a 6,000 square foot lot."

Uhm, that statement does not fit the regulations quoted. The 35% is the "largest" house you can build on a 6000 square foot lot. You could build a smaller house that was less than 35%.

But otherwise, your point is well taken and many communities have zoning ordinances that discourage fast food outlets. Ashland Oregon took the true libertarian approach. When McD's opened in downtown, the citizens began an economic boycott and McD's ended up closing the franchise account of being unprofitable.

Posted by namekarB | August 1, 2008 10:46 AM

Um, rather than the smallest house you can build on a 6000 foot lot being 2100 square feet, 2100 is the largest house you can build on 6000 square feet. Your larger point holds however: Chevy Chase has designed its zoning to force real estate prices to increase.

Posted by burritoboy | August 1, 2008 10:46 AM

My best-friend from college is involved in trying to build lower-cost housing and he has told me many times that the single-biggest impediment to his efforts is regulations like the one Matthew botched.

Posted by Roberto | August 1, 2008 10:47 AM

Roberto is crazy - clearly the law would preclude building more than one house on a lot. Stefan makes a good point, though - there's a difference between square feet of living space and square feet covered by the house.

Actually, now that I think about it, isn't Houston a city with basically no land-use regulations? I mean, these things are complicated, but I take it Houston isn't characterized by lots of density and little sprawl.

Posted by minderbender | August 1, 2008 10:48 AM

Portland, ME banished new franchises a few years ago. Now, the city's thriving with an active "buy local" culture. This comes out strongest in the restaurants, where the is some amazing food being made at a variety of prices.

But maybe that fast-food ban should be accompanied by a lifting of some of the regulations on starting a food business; an effort to encourage more push-cart vendors and street vendors, and working with developers, grocers, and farmers to bring more healthy food options into the neighborhood.

Posted by zic | August 1, 2008 10:49 AM

Portland, ME banished new franchises a few years ago. Now, the city's thriving with an active "buy local" culture. This comes out strongest in the restaurants, where the is some amazing food being made at a variety of prices.

But maybe that fast-food ban should be accompanied by a lifting of some of the regulations on starting a food business; an effort to encourage more push-cart vendors and street vendors, and working with developers, grocers, and farmers to bring more healthy food options into the neighborhood.

Posted by zic | August 1, 2008 10:49 AM

Guys, you need to go to page 2 of the zoning regulations to find the max. square footage allowed for a single family house:

1) Lots less than 6,000 s.f. may contain a
maximum gross floor area of 3,000 s.f.
(2) Lots between 6,000 s.f. and 12,000 s.f.
may have a maximum F.A.R. of
0.5
(3) Lots greater than 12,000 s.f. may
contain 6,000 square feet of gross
floor area, PLUS a F.A.R. of 0.25 for
any lot area over 12,000 s.f.

http://www.townofchevychase.org/assets/documents/pdfs/zoning/zoning.pdf

Posted by stefan | August 1, 2008 10:52 AM

so you're saying I can't build a yurt in Chevy Chase?

Posted by Yurt Lover | August 1, 2008 10:52 AM

Ah, libertarians.

In the 7+ years that Reason magazine has had a blog, they have never written a single post about snob zoning or sprawl zoning. In fact, despite the fact that fast food is banned in snobby suburbs across the country, they have never posted a single item about that, either.

But they're really just concerned about the poor people having their choice restricted to 5 McDonalds within 5 blocks instead of 7.

Posted by joe from Lowell | August 1, 2008 10:52 AM

"Houston a city with basically no land-use regulations"

No, Houston has no ZONING. They do have building regulations including setback liens and the like. The lack of zoning just means that you CAN have an office highrise next door to single family homes and across the street from a chemical plant, all on the same block as any other type of use. But all of those buildings do have to comply with minimum requirements, which may (or may not) include lot coverage ratios and minimum lot sizes.

Posted by zaleriana | August 1, 2008 10:55 AM

BTW, a min. 6,000 sq.ft. lot size is NOT large. The standard exclusionary suburb in the Northeast -- like the one I live in -- zones at 1.5 acres or about 60,000 sq.ft. 6,000 sq. ft. is a smallish but not tiny urban lot. The real restriction here is going to be on the number of people per room of the house, which I cannot find quickly, or on multi-family households.

Posted by stefan | August 1, 2008 11:02 AM

Speaking of licenses to sell booze in your neighborhood-- since Saletan lives in Montgomery County Maryland, he can't get one. Period.

Posted by MattF | August 1, 2008 11:04 AM

As a former NE resident a lot of large minimum lot size requirements were driven by lack of sewer service. Your lot had to be large enough to handle a septic field (based on assumptions about max occupancy of the largest allowed house). About the time we moved to the NW some towns were changing the lot size requirements if sewer service was available.

Posted by Butch | August 1, 2008 11:20 AM

To support my claim that a min. 6,000 lot size isn't large, it turn out that it is about the 10%-tile of all US owner occupied lots: 90% of all US owner occupied lots are larger. I you include rentals it is about the 12%-percentile.

See

http://allcountries.org/uscensus/1211_housing_units_size_of_units_and.html

Posted by stefan | August 1, 2008 11:20 AM

Minderbender..... what?

Houston has the worst sprawl probably in the world. Certainly in the US.

Houston's a model of why we NEED zoning: because it's a miserable city due to the lack thereof.

wikipedia: "Some have blamed [Houston]'s low density, urban sprawl, and lack of pedestrian-friendliness on these policies"

Posted by Luke | August 1, 2008 11:20 AM

"a lot of large minimum lot size requirements were driven by lack of sewer service."

Well, only in part: if there were lots of small lots there might be sewer service to start with. But difference in lot size do create lots of distributional problems, all the way from who pays for sewer services if only a few small lot houses need them to, well, who pays property taxes if property taxes are linear in property value but town services are used by all equally (or even more so by households with small lots).

And it is my impression that water quality clean ups for lakes and beaches are now forcing lot of large min. lot size town into creating sewer services. One friend of mine is paying this year for sewer service for his 9 acre house for this reason, including more than 100 yards to get to the new town sewer line. In part this is the town getting so wealthy that people are willing pay for this (it's not cheap with these lot sizes), though part of it is litigation driven as well.

Posted by stefan | August 1, 2008 11:32 AM

joe from Lowell,

Does this count?

I'm too lazy to look through the Reason archives for urban planning posts, as I recall, you aren't a big fan of Wal-Mart.

If the city council is concerned about lack of access to fresh groceries (undoubtedly a problem in inner-cities) why should they oppose attempts by Wal-Mart to build urban stores?

Or should they hope for a Whole Foods to drop out of the sky?

Posted by Dog's New Clothes | August 1, 2008 11:51 AM

If the city council is concerned about lack of access to fresh groceries (undoubtedly a problem in inner-cities) why should they oppose attempts by Wal-Mart to build urban stores?

I'm not sure that they should. Wal-Mart as a company engages in some egregious labor practices that should be stopped, but that's mostly an issue for the federal government to address. Also, a city council would have good reasons to want to avoid plopping an exurban-style structure into the middle of an urban area.

But if I were the Mayor of a city, and Wal-Mart was interested in having a serious discussion with urban planners about how to fit one of their stores into an urban setting, I'd be very interested in sitting down at the table with them and trying to bring a large retailer like that into my city.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | August 1, 2008 11:56 AM

On groceries in 'food deserts' -- this is actually what Tesco's US venture Fresh & Easy has started to do: adapting its 'Express' format to bring a subset of supermarket shopping to smaller (15,000 sq. ft.) stores.

They opened a branch in Compton in February.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | August 1, 2008 12:09 PM

Does Walmart want to be in urban areas? I thought their whole business plan was built on cheap land.

Target has three stores within 5 miles of my house in an inner-ring suburb. All the other big-box retailers are well-represented as well, so zoning is obviously not keeping them out. The nearest Wal-Mart is way the hell out Route 66.

On another topic, I think Joe from Lowell's point is that libertarians tend to be perfectly happy with government regulation that benefits the upper middle class (as with zoning that props up housing values in Chevy Chase by keeping out poor people). The link provided by Dog's New Clothes doesn't refute that point, it supports it.

Posted by roac | August 1, 2008 12:28 PM

roac,

That post was in defense of suburbs, not zoning. I don't see anything in there about "zoning that props up housing values...by keeping out poor people"

I certainly can't speak for all libertarians, but from my experience most oppose government regulations in general. If you can find anything from Reason that says otherwise, I'd love to see a link.

Matt,

I don't want to be the token Wal-Mart supporter. I agree that they engage in some pretty shady practices the the ones you outlined here.

I can't think of any reason why Wal-Mart wouldn't want to expand into urban areas. The stumbling block is usually expensive land, but that's not an issue in South-Central LA. As Joe says here, "Wal Mart actually has a pretty good urban model for its stores." I'm not sure what that model is exactly, but Joe's the urban planning guy,so maybe he could explain.

Posted by Dog's New Clothes | August 1, 2008 12:59 PM

Matthew writes,

And working class people around the country suffer dramatically larger concrete harms from the sort of commonplace suburbanist regulations that Saletan's been living with, without apparent complaint, in Chevy Chase. Those kind of regulations are bad for the environment, bad for public health, and serve to use the power of the state to redistribute upwards.

You provide absolutely no evidence or argument to support these assertions. Do you have any?

Posted by Mixner | August 1, 2008 1:11 PM

Mixner! Shine on you crazy, utterly predictable diamond!

"You provide absolutely no evidence or argument to support these assertions. Do you have any?"

Heaven forbid a blogger should publish without footnotes! You could try Googling Yglesias zoning, for starters. But since your shtick is to provide badger everyone for not providing evidence or arguments to support their assertions while providing no real evidence or arguments to support your own assertions, I suspect you're not really interested.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | August 1, 2008 1:29 PM

As a former Libertarian, I can tell you that many folks have argued against local building and business restrictions. To no avail. It's the sort of issue that has absolutely no traction whatsoever. Most people's eyes glaze over, and the rest are angry at you for having brought the subject up at all.

This version of the issue has traction, because people understand it. They've eaten the food. They've seen the fat people. They've probably even been downtown, if not downtown LA. They can see the obvious reasoning on both sides, and they can see how the issue could become personal.

And this is simply how advocacy works. If an issue has no traction, the line you draw in the sand has to move. If you're anti-abortion and can't find enough political pull on abortion, draw your line in the sand at partial-birth abortion. If you're anti-war and can't find outrage over the war itself, find outrage over the prosecution of the war. So this is where libertarians have drawn the line in the "zoning" sand.

From what I have seen it is uncharacteristically pragmatic of them. Good for them.

Posted by Undertoad | August 1, 2008 1:36 PM

Mixner! Shine on you crazy, utterly predictable diamond!

LaFollette! Blabber on, you crazy old coot!

Heaven forbid a blogger should publish without footnotes! You could try Googling Yglesias zoning, for starters.

Sorry, it's not up to me to look for evidence for someone else's assertions. If you're defending the claims in question, then you need to try googling for evidence to support them.

Posted by Mixner | August 1, 2008 1:52 PM

I don't see anything in there about "zoning that props up housing values...by keeping out poor people"

No you don't, and that's the point. Libertarians ought to be against restrictive zoning on principle. But they don't talk about. (Undertoad says they used to, but nobody listens. The alternative interpretation, toward which I lean, is that they don't talk about it because zoning means nobody can build low-income housing anywhere near where they live and they really, really like that).

Posted by roac | August 1, 2008 2:02 PM

Make groundless claim. Demand Himalayan level of evidence from others. Whine.

Posted by Metamixner | August 1, 2008 2:03 PM

Present guesses and wishful thinking as facts. Pretend that evidence doesn't matter. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Posted by Metametamixner | August 1, 2008 2:06 PM

Pretend that repeating back proves pont. Play rubber-glue. Whine.

Posted by Metamixner | August 1, 2008 2:13 PM

Pretend that saying something different is "repeating." Whine, whine, whine. Keep whining because you have nothing of substance to contribute.

Posted by Metametamixner | August 1, 2008 2:22 PM

Luke,

I am from the NE but have lived in Houston the last 10 years. It's far from a "miserable city." In fact, all things considered, it's one of the nicer cities I've lived in. There are drawbacks of course, but for a me (middle-aged, married, two kids, a dog and cat), it's great. Lots of great neighborhoods -- many with deed restrictions and some separately incorporated WITH de facto zoning regs. Also, good public schools in many neighborhoods, lots of culture and things to do, relatively low cost of living. Weather, sprawl, and its US Senators are drawbacks, of course, but until you find Shangri-la, I'll stay here in H-town!

Posted by Tom in Houston | August 1, 2008 2:24 PM

Whine. Whine whine whine. Whine some more. No, you're the whiner. Cars on Mars, trains down drains!

Posted by Metamixner | August 1, 2008 2:29 PM

I am from the NE but have lived in Houston the last 10 years. It's far from a "miserable city." In fact, all things considered, it's one of the nicer cities I've lived in.

Lots of other people seem to agree with you. Here is Edward Glaeser's recent article on why Houston is so much more attractive to middle-class people as a place to live than New York: Houston, New York Has a Problem

Posted by Mixner | August 1, 2008 2:31 PM

roac,

I don't attribute opinions to you that you don't hold. Don't do it to me.

You haven't provided any evidence that libertarians hate poor people, or don't want to live near poor people, or want to through poor people into a ditch and bury them alive.

Reason and other organizations have written plenty about zoning and the general libertarian consensus is that zoning is bad. And that's not because libertarians don't want to live around poor people.

Posted by Dog's New Clothes | August 1, 2008 3:30 PM

Does Walmart want to be in urban areas?

They have a store in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza (majority black neighborhood). It is 2 stories (most Wal-Marts are one-story) and was built into an existing anchor store space in a shopping mall.

They have another store in Panorama City (majority Hispanic neighborhood). That one is a one story building, that used to be another department store, with a parking lot.

In both cases, they moved into preexisting spaces, so the issue Matt talks about regarding building an exurban structure in an urban setting didn't come into play.

Posted by Dilan Esper | August 1, 2008 3:31 PM

I didn't say libertarians hate poor people. I expressed the opinion that upper-middle-class libertarian homeowners, like other upper-middle-class homeowners, perceive that low-income housing, if built near them, would lower the resale value of their homes. Therefore they are happy that zoning regulations prevent this from happening.

In other words, money trumps principle. (Not that libertarians are unique in this regard.)

Posted by roac | August 1, 2008 3:47 PM

Dog's New Clothes,

No, that doesn't count. Rather than being a criticism of snob zoning and sprawl zoning, that piece is a defense of the consequences of the government-sponsored, regulation-driven social engineering project that is suburban sprawl, and an attack on those who decry that project.

You see that all the time on Reason - defenses of the sprawlburbs, nasty attacks on people who speak out against that project - but you never see criticism of the regulations or the suggestion that the outcome produced by those regulations is anything but the perfect expression of free-market American individualism.

I'm sure the donations from the contractors, homebuilders, road-users and real estate agents lobbies to the Reason Foundation have nothing whatsoever to do with the abandonment of their states principles.

If the city council is concerned about lack of access to fresh groceries (undoubtedly a problem in inner-cities) why should they oppose attempts by Wal-Mart to build urban stores? I don't think they should. They should regulate site design to prevent a sea of asphalt/football-field-sized building setback project from ruining their urban neighborhoods, but zoning should have nothing to do with how a property owner or tenant runs his business. I don't think Wal Mart's urban-style stores have supermarkets, though. Not sure.

Posted by joe from Lowell | August 1, 2008 4:30 PM

The alternative interpretation, toward which I lean, is that they don't talk about it because zoning means nobody can build low-income housing anywhere near where they live and they really, really like that

I've spent some time studying homo libertarianus, and I disagree. Quite of few of them, especially at Reason, are "cosmo-tarians," libertarian city folk.

From what I've gathered, they don't talk about this issue, except to criticize the Smart Growth movement, because people who criticize the suburbs and the regulatory/subsidy regime which created it are often liberals and environmentalists, the sort of people who might shop at a farmer's market and drive a Prius, and who remind them of the "PC Police" they hated so much in college.

Posted by joe from Lowell | August 1, 2008 4:38 PM

Tom, I don't mean to attack lifestyle in Houston--friends of mine love living there, friends of mine hated living there.

I will say that Houston is an unsustainable city, in the terms very applicable to contemporary national problems. It has huge car usage, huge electrical usage, and is in general inefficient at being a city.

I guess not all cities need to follow the categorical imperative, although at the same time we need to stop developing cities along the lines of Houston.

Posted by Luke | August 1, 2008 4:39 PM

Reason and other organizations have written plenty about zoning and the general libertarian consensus is that zoning is bad.

I can't speak for "other organizations," and the general libertarian consensus certainly is that zoning is bad, but you are wrong about the first part: Reason very, very rarely writes about zoning. Their blog debuted in 2001, and they have never, not once, not ever, run or linked to a piece criticizing the zoning regime that created suburbia. What they do on a frequent basis is attack those who DO criticize that zoning regime and the outcomes is produced.

I agree, the general consensus among libertarians is that zoning is bad, an atrocious assault on the proprty rights of landowners - which is why it is so odd that they never seem to get around to criticizing the most prominent, significant set of zoning regulations that are in effect, or ever have an unkind word for the product of that regulatory regime, and are so eager to go after people who DO criticize those regulations, the market distortions they produce, and the development patterns that result.

Posted by joe from Lowell | August 1, 2008 4:56 PM

Houston, besides being impossibly hot and humid, smells terrible whenever the wind is in the east (i.e., blowing off the massive chemical plants lining the Ship Canal). But if you like it then you like it.

J. from L., I yield to your greater knowledge of libertarianism, since I don't know any personally. (I was a libertarian myself for a couple of weeks at the age of 13 -- I caught it from a science fiction story. But that was a very long time ago.)

Posted by roac | August 1, 2008 5:04 PM

The recent proliferation of chain fast-food restaurants and retail outlets in South-Central LA is actually the solution to an older problem.

As you'll recall, South Central LA witnessed vicious racial pogroms in April 1992 against immigrant (typically Korean) entrepreneurs operating within the black community. Korean shopkeepers tended to treat black customers brusquely and would seldom hire and almost never promote local blacks.

Since then, corporate America, often in partnership with black entrepreneurs like Magic Johnson, has greatly expanded the number of chain outlets in South Central. These are more willing to employ local residents than immigrant mom-and-pop establishments, and promote them too.

In general, the Stuff White People Like coterie sees immigrant-dominated retail streets as "vibrant" and chain-dominated retail streets as "boring," but the latter are better for African-Americans looking for jobs.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 1, 2008 6:30 PM

As Matt says, fast food restaurants can have terrible trouble getting permits to open in expensive municipalities. A number of years ago, McDonalds waged an epic battle for years to get the right to open a store on Martha's Vineyard. Similarly, the last time I was in Avalon on Catalina Island, there wasn't a single chain outlet of any kind.

So, what's different about this is that it's happening in a poor neighborhood, where fast food restaurants have typically been welcome since they provide jobs to poor people. I'm just speculating, but perhaps what has happened in South Central is that black politicians in LA have turned against fast food outlets because so many tipped to work forces that are all Hispanic, because once you have a certain fraction of Spanish-only employees, it makes sense to get rid of all your English-only employees. And African-Americans in LA are almost never bilingual.

The Latino employees are frequently illegal immigrants who don't vote, so the black politicians electoral base doesn't benefit as much from fast food employment anymore.

In general, black politicians in LA represent districts where most of the voters are black but most of the residents and workers are Latino.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 1, 2008 7:02 PM

In the 7+ years that Reason magazine has had a blog, they have never written a single post about snob zoning or sprawl zoning. In fact, despite the fact that fast food is banned in snobby suburbs across the country, they have never posted a single item about that, either.

joe, I don't mind the fact that you are "going all Dave W." in this thd, but ya gotta get the facts str8:

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/125051.html

Posted by Dave W. | August 2, 2008 1:27 PM

Come on, joe. I'm too lazy to go through the archives myself, but there've been H&R posts, about the ridiculousness of zoning restrictions on the cosmetic appearance of houses, on regulations requiring back-entrances because driveways in the front 'look bad' and on how lot size restrictions have forced people trying to cut a lot on the family farm for their son's family to subdivide the entire farm just to do it. Virginia Postrel, former editor-in-cheif at Reason, has posted a LOT of commentary on residential zoning restrictions.

There have also been posts about home-owners-associations and covenant restrictions, and whether those kinds of contractual restrictions were just more quasi-governmental regulations or legitimate consensual and non-coercive agreements.

Libertarians may or may not live in regulated suburbs (I do, but mostly because there's nothing else within 10 miles of my job, and I don't like long commutes), and they may not make write weekly anti-zoning jeremiads, but that shouldn't be construed as tacit approval of regulation.

Also - Dave W - naughty, naughty!

Posted by lunchstealer | August 3, 2008 3:15 AM

Come on, joe. I'm too lazy to go through the archives myself, but there've been H&R posts, about the ridiculousness of zoning restrictions on the cosmetic appearance of houses, on regulations requiring back-entrances because driveways in the front 'look bad' and on how lot size restrictions have forced people trying to cut a lot on the family farm for their son's family to subdivide the entire farm just to do it. Virginia Postrel, former editor-in-cheif at Reason, has posted a LOT of commentary on residential zoning restrictions.

There have also been posts about home-owners-associations and covenant restrictions, and whether those kinds of contractual restrictions were just more quasi-governmental regulations or legitimate consensual and non-coercive agreements.

Libertarians may or may not live in regulated suburbs (I do, but mostly because there's nothing else within 10 miles of my job, and I don't like long commutes), and they may not make write weekly anti-zoning jeremiads, but that shouldn't be construed as tacit approval of regulation.

Also - Dave W - naughty, naughty!

Posted by lunchstealer | August 3, 2008 3:18 AM