what does anarchy say about zoning

Question

In Texas there is a house with a rollercoaster next to it because they have no zoning laws. Is this the price for personal freedom?

Comments

that is the price of capitalism and the state. personal freedom starts where capitalism and the state (and plenty of other related crap) ends - or at least where their impact on one's life is able to be limited.

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the price of admission of an adrenaline-seeking populace bored to tears by being forced to take part in an anti-social, WIFM, profit-seeking system of long-term tenants euphemistically called 'property owners.' This sad carnival never ends as long as there's stuff to buy, sell, take...and sell back.

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! On your right, you have the Medusa. On your left, Procrustes and his inscrutable bed!

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Zoning is state management of use of the land. Zoning laws decides what an individual can or cannot be build on said land or what can or cannot be done to the land the state says they own. I imagine anarchy would say it's opposed to this.

Texas has zoning laws. Typically in smaller towns, it's more likely they will be laxer, but that is common for everywhere in the US, not just Texas. While Houston doesn't, they sort of do, but it's capitalism and profit that make the 'zoning' decisions instead of the state per se. In other words, it's just the state enforcing that said land is the persons and that they can do whatever they want with it.

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I don't know if I fully understand what this question is trying to get at. What I would say about it, though, is that zoning is transparently a way of creating pressure to develop areas of a city in certain way, so as to remove one type of occupant and 'invite' another - usually for economic reasons.

And that the situation of e.g. Houston, where development is instead determined more directly by the market, obviously has nothing to do with anarchy.

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You'll find on this site that people oppose a lot of the types of state-centered debate (as in, debating the application of certain laws and restrictions) because we think the whole state apparatus is fucked, and it's only with the state/capitalist apparatus that things like roller coasters are built anyway...

as far as zoning, it's just another regulation on top of the millions of regulations that the state imposes that ultimately makes us have less and less breathing room. There can be some instances where using zoning to get what you want can be useful (for example, if we had zoning around here then this would prevent this shale mine these assholes have been planning on building around here), but in the end the general practice of zoning just makes life more irritating...

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zoning laws are ostensibly about "safety". then again, so is pretty much every other law on the books. safety being, of course, a hugely subjective term.

laws can be seen - especially by the extra(anti)-legal such as anarchists - as both a threat and a tool. when they can be used as tools, use them as such, if it makes sense in a given situation. when they are a threat, avoid them at all costs. at least that is my approach, generally speaking.

it sucks that those are (to me) the only viable choices, but that is the world we live in; one where "law and order" is seen as a good - indeed, required - thing. i don't see it that way.

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the irritating thing about zoning is they effect so many different aspects of what one may want to do with his/her property, but it the end its whiny neighbors who are your enemy in this struggle, because you don't even have to obey the law if no one notices

however, i wouldn't want a rollercoaster to be next to my house, that's for sure....

Answer 1

If I could I'd have a roller coaster, and a trampoline (with no safety nets) close by. I love the front seat of an old wooden roller coaster. Fuck the zoning though...