link to original reddit post by /u/the_og_dingdong

American cities suck. They are ugly, they are filled with crime, they smell, you need a car to go anywhere, rent has been rising much faster than general inflation in the biggest cities and they lack any architectural variance. There are a number of laws that cause these problems that I don't feel are addressed often enough among Libertarians. I know a few people who studied Urban Planning who would agree with my points on this issue despite them not being remotely Libertarian.

Zoning

If I own a plot of land, it is my prerogative to decide what the most valuable use of that land would be. Should I build a house? Should I build retail? Should I build high-density mixed uses? Any decent entrepreneur will look at the market for these uses in the area and will decide how to best maximize the value of the land. They do this now to an extent but they are blocked by zoning laws. Zoning laws are ordinances that lay out plans for what kind of buildings can be built where and how big they can be. Most land in America's metro areas is zoned for single-family use only.

When demand for housing increases due to migration or economic growth, the value of land will appreciate. This is a signal for real estate developers to build more stuff. Without zoning codes and density restrictions, the most valuable land would be occupied by buildings that can bring the most profit per square foot of land. These would often be tall buildings with mixed uses (Retail/restaurants on the bottom floor and housing/offices above). The incentive to increase the housing supply can keep rents from rising at a rate faster than general inflation. This paper demonstrates that land value makes up large percentages of total real estate value compared to the value of the buildings.

Since it is very difficult to getting zoning restrictions removed on any project that may be controversial to anyone, cities grow out rather than up. A clear example of this is Phoenix. Due to weather and job growth, many people are choosing to move to Phoenix which happens the be the 5th largest city in the country. That said, walking around downtown Phoenix, you would not get that impression. There are very few skyscrapers and the entire city is covered with low-density housing. Phoenix's growth is not really bound by physical constraints so it can continue to grow out for years to come. Cities like San Francisco or New York are very geographically constrained and so they cannot build outward which means rents have to skyrocket. There is nothing inherently wrong with low-density housing but the fact that the government forces private citizens to live in them creates adverse effects.

Other density restricting policies

Setbacks determine the distance your building has to be from the property line effectively limiting the percent of your land you can build on, limiting density.

Parking requirements require commercial buildings to have an unreasonably high amount of parking spaces for use. (Has anyone ever seen a full target parking lot?) Parking takes up a ton of valuable space and at a great cost to the landowner. 14% of LA is parking spaces. It also requires landowners to subsidize car users.

Property taxes discourage people from improving their own land.

Alternative low-cost housing options like Tiny Houses, Duplexes, and residential hotels are banned or heavily restricted in most cities.

Transportation

When everybody lives far away from where they work, learn, shop, and play, you need something to get them to their destinations. We decided to build giant roads everywhere. It's the only solution that made any sense given the policies laid out. Walking would take forever, our cities aren't built for biking and public transportation is not profitable given the density levels.

In European and Asian cities private-public transportation options are common and before zoning become popular, good public transportation existed in nearly every US city including smaller ones. This is because high density allows for higher profits for buses, taxis, and streetcars. Public transit options fail because they aren't useful to most people given our current infrastructure not because the cities don't fund them well enough.

Cars are expensive. We spend about 13% of our total income on them. If we could walk/bike/use transit more often we wouldn't have to spend so much money and we could use that money on other things. They're awful for the environment and take about a third of our emissions. They kill quite a few people each year and cause many more injuries. Driving, rather than walking or biking is a major factor in obesity which is one of America's top killers.

To be clear, I am not suggesting to ban or restrict cars, rather that they have been forced upon us by government policy at a great cost.

Social Impact

Restrictive zoning has historically been used to segregate communities. When combined with other policies like school districting, welfare, and overcriminalization, it helped to create poverty traps in the inner cities. Lack of physical mobility leads to a lack of economic mobility.

It's common to see people suggesting throwing a ton of money into different programs to solve these issues. Rent control, free housing, free public transit, etc. None of these solutions work. We need to deregulate our cities. I believe that this is one of the most important social-economic issues and that fixing it can positively impact poverty, healthcare, general quality of life, personal savings, the environment, and social cohesion.

The website https://marketurbanism.com/ has a lot of good articles that go into depth on these subjects.