This article is not utopian, but it is possibly utopian-adjacent.  I am not a utopian, libertarian won’t make everything perfect for everyone, but I think it will do a lot of good.  But I am also a deontological libertarian, so do the right thing, and accept the results you get.

This article is designed to piss off two groups.  First new urbanists, who want dense cities and cars banned and everything walkable and etc.  Secondly, pro-suburb, pro-car libertarians.  Lots of what I am going to discuss has been discussed on strongtowns.org (see notes at bottom of article), although not these specific ideas very often.

I am going to discuss some ideas for changes to our cities in a libertarian fashion and how that will upset the current structure and what the new equilibrium might look like.  On this, I am just guessing, I want to do the right thing and then I will accept whatever the result is.

 

First, zoning, its got to go.  There should be, at most, two zones.  One for heavy industrial, things that are polluting, or loud, or dangerous.  They get their own zone.  The second zone is everything else.  There are efforts moving in this direction, movements to allow upzoning and etc.  I have seen supposed libertarians oppose some of these, mostly because of the people proposing them, but while they are far from perfect, they are a step in the right direction.  Related to this, is a change in the law regarding HOAs.  Florida used to have a law similar to what I am proposing, but lobbyists for builders got it removed.  My version limits any deed restrictions to 25 years.  When you buy a property, you should be buying the property, and while I can see some need for deed restrictions, they shouldn’t last in perpetuity.  So a generation is a good limit.  That would basically have all HOAs expire after 25 years.  So if you want to build a Single Family Home neighborhood, you can, but 25 years from now if someone wants to convert a house into an apartment building or a pub or office space, or what-have-you, there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.  This, interestingly, counteracts some of those upzoning ordinances I talked about, but at the same time, makes them unnecessary, as you can upbuild all you want if you are past the end of the deed restriction.

Second, parking.  Lots of places are getting rid of parking minimums.  Few have parking maximums, and even some of those are going away (although the people that really hate parking minimums, love parking maximums).  This isn’t the correct answer, at least not in full.  Cities should be getting rid of these mandates, but they also should be divesting themselves of parking lots.  City owned parking should be sold, let the market price for parking adjust.  You don’t need minimum parking mandates, businesses will want enough parking, either they will provide, or make sure they are located near acceptable parking.  The most controversial part of this would be cities divesting of street parking.  Sell off that strip of land or return it to the property owner who borders it.  It may or may not remain parking, but the city doesn’t have to deal with or maintain it anymore.

Third, infrastructure.  For this I am talking about water/sewers/utilities/etc, not roads, that’s #4.  Infrastructure needs to be charged appropriately.  If we privatized all of these services, that would happen naturally, which is the best approach, but even with city-owned services, there can be changes.  If a lot on the outskirts requires multiple pumping stations to get water to it, it should be charge a higher rate than a lot next to the water company.  Maybe a private company wouldn’t do it that way, but until we privatize, infrastructure costs should be paid appropriately.

Fourth, roads and streets.  First lets define them, I will use a modified definition from Strongtowns, because I don’t like their definition of streets.  A road is a high speed connector between places.  A street is a platform for destinations:  houses, offices, stores, whatever.  Streets should be slow, with cars, bikes, and pedestrians sharing the space.  A road is for cars (and maybe bikes/pedestrians on rural roads) to get to somewhere else fast.  Roads should have few access points, there shouldn’t be destinations along them (exception again for rural roads, but things like farm entrances should be well spaced out so that its still mostly true).  In general, streets should be 25 mph or less, roads should be 55 mph or greater.  There are some limited cases for “slow roads”, some 35-45 mph roads that are still roads, but shorter connections within cities.   Generally though, they can be redesigned for 55 mph.  Okay, that is all well and good, but how are we paying for these streets and roads.  Roads are easy, they should all be tolled.  Heck, they could be privatized.  Streets are a little more difficult.  I would turn “ownership” of streets over the local POA (Property Owners Association) where they exist, or a special taxing district could be created where they don’t (or where the 25 year deed restrictions have expired).  The owners within the district take care of maintenance of the roads.  They could handle the street-side parking I mentioned in #2.  If they want to save money and go with gravel, they could.  If an exclusive neighborhood so wished, they could pave their streets with gold.

There are plenty of other ideas, but you get the gist, and I think these are the most important.

Finally, I want to discuss what I think this does.  What is the new equilibrium?  Cities should look like normal curves, taller in the center and getting smaller as you go out to the edges.  Lots of places have limited the heights in the city centers, so you get more spread and sprawl (I refuse to call sprawl a bad thing, but when it is the result of government policies, it is).  So, city cores will get taller and more dense.  “Hurray”, says the new urbanists!  “Grumble, grumble,” says certain others around here.  It is (or was?) standard practice that new neighborhoods on the edges of city start with septic tanks and as the city grows, they eventually get on city water.  And think more of that will happen, if infrastructure is charges properly.  Suburbs in general will get more expensive, which is why we get the city core getting denser.  But they won’t go away.  People want to have land and a lawn.  And those that can afford it, will.  And they will continue to drive places (although they may have a pub on their street!).  I can already hear the complaints about the ubiquitous EZ pass that is going to have to exist in every car to pay for road driving.  I do think, in general, places will be more walkable, but the urbanists are gonna be pissed about the people still zooming to big box stores in their cars.  And with less traffic, probably, the driving will be more enjoyable.  I made it to this point with mentioning the Single Land Tax, well, that will have to wait.

For further readings on these topics, I have two recommendations.

  1.  Strongtowns.org – you can even see me sometimes as the lone voice for libertarianism in the comments section.
  2. “Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation” by Bryan Caplan, to be released May 1.  I haven’t read it, obviously, but I know it will be good.  Amazon link:  https://www.amazon.com/Build-Baby-Science-Housing-Regulation/dp/1952223415/

For those confused by the title of this article, the first SF is short for San Francisco, the second is short for Science Fiction.

 

And a music link, because why not.