Inside The Mind of Urbanism's Biggest Critic

There aren't a lot of prominent critics of urbanism out there. Yes, lots of people argue against bike lanes, public transit, or housing density at city hall meetings, but relatively few people make their name in arguing for "suburbanist" approaches to housing and transportation.
Randal O'Toole, also known as the Antiplanner, is one big exception. He takes urbanist beliefs about housing and transportation, flips them on their head, and argues for the exact opposite. In this video we explore some of his beliefs to try to see where he's coming from.
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References:
Densification Was a Communist Plot: ti.org/antiplanner/?p=19904
Free Transit Is Just More Oppression: ti.org/antiplanner/?p=19924
The Case for Single-Family Neighborhoods: ti.org/antiplanner/?p=16526
How Cato Sold Out California Property Owners: ti.org/antiplanner/?p=19643
Americans Are Unprepared for a Nuclear Attack: www.politico.com/magazine/sto...
The Local Residential Land Use Regulatory Environment Across U.S. Housing Markets: www.nber.org/system/files/wor...
Vancouver lot sizes: GRIDSVancouver/st...
Toronto housing market: wowa.ca/toronto-housing-market
Green Cities, Brown Suburbs: www.city-journal.org/html/gre...
Music we used: Medium Rock by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/.... Artist: audionautix.com/
#urbanplanning #suburbs

[@OhTheUrbanity]

The main Antiplanner posts we referenced in this video: Densification Was a Communist Plot: ti.org/antiplanner/?p=19904 How Cato Sold Out California Property Owners: ti.org/antiplanner/?p=19643 The Case for Single-Family Neighborhoods: ti.org/antiplanner/?p=16526 Free Transit Is Just More Oppression: ti.org/antiplanner/?p=19924

[@Nukepositive]

Are we looking at a potential "Oh the Urbanity!" series?

[@Banedragon]

Gov: we are allowing developers to build 2-plexes and 4-plexes if they want Otool: you are trying to make a hive city from 40k Public: you what, mate?

[@johnkirstein333]

This was a really good video, and I agree with 99% of your arguments. The only thing that I would recommend is that you do some research about what libertarianism actually means. Randal O'Toole is a far-right wing conservative, not a libertarian. Libertarian is not far right wing like the mainstream political parties would like people to believe (this is a huge misconception that most people have), in fact it's completely different. I would argue that you guys are infinitely more libertarian than O'Toole is - in fact most people in the world are libertarian without even realizing it. All Libertarians want is for people to be left alone to make their own decisions about how to use their own property. As long as it doesn't cause measurable harm to anyone else, it's none of their business. And no, "ruining neighbourhood character" does not qualify as "measurable harm". Libertarians also believe in free market capitalism - which means that if they don't use their property productively, they would be punished by their customers who who choose their competition over them. This combination of free choice and free market would naturally lead to land being developed to maximize its productive potential, which would result in higher density. There is a far better use of land than to cover 75% of it with asphalt - anyone who owns land would agree with you. Right now we have neither free choice or a free market. Additionally, large centralized governments have a monopoly, which is why they use their land so inefficiently (aka the ROWs) The only reason we have so many parking lots is because of government regulation, not because that's what the land owners wanted. The only reason we don't have decent transit in North America is because governments have no competition, and therefore they have no incentive to use their land more productively. Everything you are arguing for (minimal zoning, no NIMBYism, no minimum lot size requirements, no minimum parking requirements, etc) is libertarian by nature. To be libertarian is to be human.

[@zilfondel]

@@Banedragon O'Toole would never get that reference. However, obviously duplex craftsman style houses = evil commie blocks adorned with Leninist statues.

[@stanhry]

Urbanism is full of it’s Utopic thinking , if we plan it , it will better. Central planning is always better then chaos. Everybody will love high density and renting. “You will own nothing and be happy. “ From a non urbanism ,Housing chooses are extremely local to personal. Forcing planned neighborhoods, do not reflect what the people looking for housing wants. Often creating problems and chaos where if just left alone the local interests would struggle and work them out. Then there the use of eminent domain, for creating this utopia of urbanism, yuk. Thanks for bringing up this subjects.

[@Carsonist]

"Preventing me from using my land as I wish is tyranny, but preventing YOU from using your land as YOU wish is just sensible policy" seems to be the philosophy here.

[@rudinah8547]

Yeah the situation he's describing against green belts is the exact same as what he's advocating for wrt exclusionary zoning??

[@SomeDudeQC]

He seems like a very confused libertarian.

[@squelchedotter]

It's the CATO institute, so yeah. They're paid to argue oligarchs should be able to do what they want.

[@tylersims1570]

Most libertarians seem to be very confused.

[@gamarad]

"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

[@ColonelRPG]

Arguing that densification is bad because the Soviets wanted to bomb their own people, is like arguing that wide roads are bad because Napoleon wanted to prevent revolutionaries from barricading the roads 🙄

[@herlescraft]

But it's hard to drive cars in small alleys... Come on we are trying to push the American dream here, coherence isn't a requirement

[@sahitdodda5046]

The best part is some commie cities also had the same idea that wide roads prevent protests

[@josephmoore4764]

It's the "You know who was also a vegetarian?" of housing policy

[@robertcartwright4374]

God this is a fertile subject for wit!

[@person-yu8cu]

It's so ironic pointing the finger at the soviet union for trying to stop an uprising, when it is America that has brutally crushed any rebellion against capitalism with inhuman force. I'm sure suburban sprawl is much worse for organizing an uprising than dense commie blocks.

[@NotJustBikes]

I'm surprised you covered this topic, to be honest. I've been following Randal for years and it's extremely obvious that he's full of it. Decades ago he used to write about the benefits of trains, but then he started getting funded by libertarians and fossil fuel billionaires, and suddenly he was all in favour of anything that requires more cars and more driving. Big surprise. As you pointed out, his "freedom" arguments are completely haphazard and are used only when convenient. He has no consistency in his "arguments". And his "history" of suburbia is wildly slanted with no mention of how zoning was designed to be exclusionary. His goal is only to make suburbanites angry so that they'll demand more fossil-fuel driven development, to the benefit of his financiers. There is literally no reason to ever take him seriously. As for urban growth boundaries, you should watch the recent City Beautiful video about them, because they actually make housing cheaper, not more expensive: but only if they're done across a region, as opposed to just one city. This is because they promote more efficient land use. His video goes into much more detail about the actual research.

[@NotJustBikes]

Here is the relevant City Beautiful video about urban growth boundaries: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZ6QfKWJpt5ke68

[@blakksheep736]

Hi Jason! I agree, I have no idea how this guy thinks he makes any sense.

[@blakksheep736]

Ah, oil funding you say? Why am i not surprised?

[@blakksheep736]

F to the people who got negative shout outs in this vid. "I don't want non-R1 zoning because I don't want to live near people with different races and voting preferences from me". Yipes, man, I thought we were past racism now.

[@8lec_R]

Fr tho, don't take this guy seriously. By doing so we're only giving credence to his "theories". They are nothing but lies meant to push his own agenda

[@thegreypenguin5097]

Him: "why should the GOVERNMENT tell the property owner what to do!" Also him: "the government should force the property owner to only build a single-family home!"

[@pedrob3953]

Typical libertarian.

[@InventorZahran]

Logic level: 1000

[@tunafeesh]

He seems to be missing a few screws.

[@spicychad55]

American conservative ideology in a nutshell

[@coweatsman]

Property rights libertarianism must have its limits. What property owner has the right to store toxic chemicals on their property?

[@alanthefisher]

O'Toole is definitely one of the ultimate grifters, and you didn't even mention the best part, he's a massive model train enthusiast haha

[@itsjonny1744]

Clearly just a fan of model trains and not the real thing

[@applesyrupgaming]

he rides amtrak and cycles a LOT

[@vinniezcenzo]

@@applesyrupgaming I guess a broken clock can be right twice a day.

[@m.e.3862]

Hmmm.... Reminds me of those self loathing preachers that openly condemn homosexuality only later to be found on a Thai beach with a Ladyboy companion 😛

[@Maddiedoggie]

Wait, don't you mean "hyper-futuristic self driving pods"?

[@carfreeneoliberalgeorgisty5102]

What's interesting (not to mention weird) is that Randal O'Toole is a free market libertarian. This means he should be in favour of looser zoning/land use regulations since zoning is a form of central economic planning.

[@m.e.3862]

as with most of these loudmouths it's "do as I say, not as I do".😛

[@Imthefake]

he is a communist in libertarian clothings

[@carfreeneoliberalgeorgisty5102]

@@Imthefake sounds more like a neofeudalist in that he believes that the economy should be based around the desires of rich rural/suburban/exurban land owners rather than an urban capitalist market economy or a collectivist communist command economy. Leftists love to blame profit seeking business interests for issues surrounding economic inequality and environmental damage but the true barrier to progress is the interests of the "old money" rural landowning class.

[@Moses_VII]

So right. The right wing are hypocrites because they are uneducated. They don't seem to understand how things work, because they make up conspiracy theories. They don't believe in science. Physics is denied, because it says there is climate change, and economics is also ignored when they force people to live in suburbs using zoning laws.

[@stormveil]

Classic doublethink.

[@TheNoblestMan]

I did such a double take at "Dense Zoning correlates with expensive housing, therefore we should ban Dense Zoning." Like... a lot more people die in Hospitals than anywhere else, does that mean we should ban Hospitals? The arrow of causality goes the other way my dude!

[@NotJustBikes]

Yes, "nobody" wants to live in urban areas and they all want single family homes, but somehow the high demand has made urban areas more expensive than other areas because ... uh... that can't be. [libertarian mode enabled] liberals have forced people to live against their will in cities, and raised the price artificially to extract more taxes from minorities.

[@Lady-V]

He also said he wanted housing to be a good investment. By that logic he should be happy with rising housing prices.

[@astrahcat1212]

Not taking into account that you don't need a CAR! Insurance = $90 a month, car payment = $300+ at least with taxes, and gasoline prices are sky high. They released an electric bicycle that can now go 200 miles on a single charge and they're innovating more and more by the day. Renting a house vs renting an apartment in a metro area, it'd cost less to rent the apartment even if it was 25% higher cost, with an electric bike you could get to and from work, you could take trains and planes to get to where you need to go if you need to go out of town. Every now and then you could rent a car if you have to go a long distance into the countryside. Unless you're a farmer, no need to live in a none-dense area, unless you're a prepper or something.

[@GrahamLikeTheCrackers]

And I looked at that graph with the "linear relationship" in the big amorphous mass of points and said "yeah sure. You go ahead and try to tell me that there's a statistically significant correlation here, let alone causation."

[@Hastur876]

In my city, anyway, dense housing correlates very highly with poverty. Also, neighbourhoods with high poverty have higher public transit use. It makes perfect sense when you realize that space is a desired good, and that cars are expensive so are unaffordable for poor people.

[@mucklavision731]

funny thing is a dense city made it much more easier to revolt/lock government forces out of specific areas. That's why Hausmann was tasked to bulldoze wide boulevards through Paris. Ironically the regime that actually planned cities in order to suppress the majority was Apartheid South Africa which used suburban-style street layouts in townships in order to better isolate and control pockets of resistance and access every last corner with armored vehicles

[@CheapCharlieChronicles]

Medieval Paris consisting of twisty narrow alleyways was the spawning point of frequent revolutions and revolts. Not just the French Revolution and the revolution of 1848 but many other large and frequent revolts that were historic footnotes. Since Paris was historically the center of French power this was a big problem for the government. The French Army consisting mostly of soldiers from the countryside were unable to operate and quell revolts in the warren of streets that was Paris. Hausmann's objective in the 1870s was to create avenues so that the army could march in and out of to deal with the urban "rabble" if needed.

[@NamelessProducts]

This is fascinating and I never considered it. Any further reading?

[@ianhomerpura8937]

@@CheapCharlieChronicles somehow it didn't work, as proven in 1968. People were still able to make huge barricades.

[@colinmacdonald5732]

Paris is still pretty dense though, but those wide avenues make baton charges easier.

[@benqurayza7872]

Point on! Blacks living in these "suburban" townships have long arduous commutes to work!

[@AldanFerrox]

And at the same time, these people claim to be for a free market. And what if the market demands high-density housing? The free market is only convinient if it helps their point.

[@gl4989]

Let's be real, most people would live in houses if they were cheap.

[@CheapCharlieChronicles]

I think it's just one guy, Randal O'Toole. Cato itself favors high density housing and reducing restrictions on the housing market.

[@glock4455]

@@gl4989 i guess it really depends on culture. In highly populated places, there's so much to do outside of your home that it slowly becomes just a resting spot when you are tired from doing stuff

[@blakksheep736]

@@r.d.9399 what's your point?

[@Lady-V]

@@r.d.9399 Just so you know they're also the ones building the low density suburban buildings as well. Where there's money to be made they're going to make it.

[@KateeAngel]

"Bombing if they revolt" is the craziest crap I heard about USSR. And I am from Russia, and my parents were born in 1949 and 1952 so lived in USSR for a long time

[@Jack-sq6xb]

Its ironic because the us has bombed its own civilians, multiple times

[@Imthefake]

the us DID bomb its own citizen when they tried to revolt (and it was in a suburb), it never happened in the ussr (afaik)

[@ristekostadinov2820]

@@Imthefake they tested nukes close to civilians on the Bikini Islands

[@CheapCharlieChronicles]

When you see how the USSR treated it's soldiers in WW2 it's not so far fetched. However it is a wild argument to support low density sprawl. On the flip side there is a theory that low density sprawl and a shift to sunbelt cities was pushed so hard in the 1950s in the United States because there was a fear that in the event of a nuclear war much of the American economy and infrastructure would be wiped out with just a few well placed nukes as much of the US economy was centered on a dozen urban areas in the midwest and northeast (Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Baltimore, etc).

[@robertcartwright4374]

@@Imthefake In Philly.

[@toranp.8942]

“Your neighbors outvoting you to keep your land the way they like it is tyranny. So anyway, back onto why we should make sure people are only allowed to build single-family houses because we wouldn’t like denser buildings…”

[@elliotkelly8354]

I'm living the effects of yellow belt zoning. I and my wife each have jobs paying above the national average, but I cannot afford a home for us and our kids in Toronto, but neither do I want to live in a GTA car-dependant Ex-Urban cultural wasteland and swallow a 100 minute daily commute.

[@CheapCharlieChronicles]

Urban greenbelts are almost as bad as zoning codes in bad planning policy. They do not eliminate sprawl or encourage higher density, instead they cast sprawl even farther across the hinterland, increase traffic and auto usage and raise housing costs.

[@alexlight1157]

Definitely stay in the market, Toronto/ the GTA is still correcting and I'm sure you'll be able to find condo townhomes in your pricerange for you and your family soon :) (Try and get a rate lock before July 13 as interest rates keep rising)

[@ano_nym]

@@CheapCharlieChronicles yup, just lets ignore the benefits of greenbelts. Enjoy your floods.

[@SanderSA-ny3lh]

@@CheapCharlieChronicles ....Why tf would we want to encourage even higher density given its massive, massive problems and costs?

[@lzh4950]

Singapore also has an unofficial green belt separating its outermost suburbs e.g. Bt Panjang, Yishun from the rest of the city, of which part of it is the Little _Guilin_ park (a former quarry turned into a lake), the legally protected Bt Timah & Central Catchment Nature Reserves, but other forests in this belt e.g. between Khatib & YCK train stations are legally zoned as "reserve sites", which I remember aren't legally protected from future development (& Disneyland had considered building a theme park there in the '90s, but now its an army training ground). The outermost suburbs are even more densely populated than some inner ones though (probably because the inner ones were built before the post-WW2 population boom, or are near a nature reserve), meaning that you have to extend heavy rail far out from downtown to these outermost suburbs to serve the residents there, while some stations along the way that serve the inner suburbs see lower ridership, which is probably not so cost effective. HK also has such a green belt separating its outer suburbs e.g Shatin from the downtown & inner suburbs, but it's more understandable as the belt is occupied by mountains, & with them already occupying almost 70% of HK's land, flat land in even more outlying areas e.g. Shatin are valuable too, so you will still see high-rises there e.g. some condominiums were built above a train depot to save space

[@CheapCharlieChronicles]

It seems the most dense communities in the United States have the highest real estate values. Manhattan, San Francisco, Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia, central Boston, etc. Even many inner suburbs like Santa Monica have higher densities and higher real estate prices than more sprawling San Bernadino. Seems like there are many Americans who do like high densities. The problem isn’t that Americans don’t want higher densities it’s that they are not given the choice with the near universal zoning codes which mandates low density. Some say the Bay Area should have 30 million people with the wealth that was created by silicone valley the last 50 years. But communities in Silicone Valley are all low density single family homses instead of dense and cheap walk up apartment buildings. Young Americans from other parts of the country were not able to move to Silicone Valley and take advantage of this prosperity due to lack of housing, working class residents suffered with high cost of housing and companies had to deal with inefficiencies of locating the facilities in other cities and countries because they couldn’t get the labor locally. The only people that benefited from these zoning codes were NIMBY housing owners (even that is debatable as they may have had higher property values as developers if densification had occurred). Pernicious zoning codes hurt everyone.

[@rudinah8547]

In suburbia they can control prices better by increasing supply (using more land). Since cities are limited on land, the only lever they have to increase supply is densification. But the rules that create suburbia don't work in cities, and so they aren't allowed to build density. Many of the densest buildings in those cities are now illegal to build. +1 to upzoning the fuck out of the SF Bay Area

[@paxundpeace9970]

Even when you look at dense residential areas like those Brownstone buildings in New York or other place they are higher value then other residential areas.

[@itsjonny1744]

Landlords benefitted from the property value boom in California.

[@sunyuchen4562]

In my opinion, High land value is the REASON, and the high-density development is the CONSEQUENCE.

[@southerncoyote]

It seems far fetched at first glance but check out the growth of Tokyo along the same wealth creation scale.

[@beardannyboy]

"These density restrictions come mainly from people who don't want their neighbors to live in higher density housing" Boom! Great line

[@machtmann2881]

On housing as a financial asset, does anyone else get the sense that we're locked into an unsustainable pattern of affordability? By financializing the roof over our heads like that, we're making housing less attainable with each successive generation. Let me take an example. Suppose I bought a house 30 years ago. It shoots up in value over that time because I happened to buy in a good location but I had no control over that. That's great for me as the current homeowner and that's how people think. But it really sucks as a prospective homebuyer because that person has to pay way more for that house than I did relative to income (because wages do not keep up with home values) so they take on more debt. Rinse and repeat each generation and that house gets less and less attainable over time except for the wealthiest people or large financial institutions. That's basically the situation we're in now. Homeownership made a lot of sense in the 1950s when it was abundant. But since then we've just been pulling the economic ladder up as we went up it so future generations are screwed. YOU may have been able to buy that house...but will your kids be able to the same thing? Perhaps you think they can inherit the house or assets you built up but the thing is, you still need those things while both you and your kids are alive and that overlap can be a really long time. What about people who come new to the country without much or people without home owning parents? Life is real messy once you try to think about people outside of just current homeowners.

[@eitkoml]

The only way that housing should be an investment is by going into the business of renting out housing units and dealing with tenants, additional regulations, potential damage to properties, additional maintenance, costs vs revenue, etc. Merely owning one unit and living in it should not be an investment.

[@eitkoml]

Here are the conservative/white/racist/boomer "solutions" to the problems you mentioned. The favorite child gets the house, screw the rest. Screw the poor people, mostly minorities, who don't have homeowning parents. Screw the immigrants who mostly are not white. Then talk about the "American Dream" of benefiting from your work and "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" while being hostile towards anyone who actually manages to do that, if they are not white.

[@Jodamo]

It's a ponzi scheme like the rest of the American economic structure.

[@blakksheep736]

Yeah. This is also why cryptocurrency will never pan out in the long run. It runs off the assumption everyone will be able to find someone willing to pay more for thier currency than they did. Unsustainability go brrrrrrr.

[@colinmacdonald5732]

O' Toole is like a guy who argues for Ponzi schemes because they all make investors a ton of money at the beginning.

[@jamesuthmann940]

"People just don't want to live in denser housing!" Which is why the eight huge apartment complexes that have been built in my neighborhood in the last three years were all completely full within two months of completion.

[@fontunetheteller410]

Ok but they have no other choice where to live. No one wants to rent

[@blightybog7207]

@@fontunetheteller410 *slooowly raises hand* I do? Buying a house would be a bad move for me since I move a LOT to get closer to better jobs. That and if I did buy a house, in my areas housing market I'd be paying WELL over what I'm renting for an equivalent home in mortgage payments.

[@fontunetheteller410]

@@blightybog7207 ok but if you had to pick between renting for 20 years and an equally priced mortgage for 20 years, you'd pick the house.

[@Joesolo13]

@@fontunetheteller410 why couldn't I get the mortgage on a Condo?

[@fontunetheteller410]

@@Joesolo13 because you shouldn't have to hear your neighbor rocking the bed frame every night on all four sides

[@joeg451]

This guy sounds dogmatic enough that I expect someone is paying him to talk like this. It'd be interesting to know where his bread is buttered. What industry benefits from this rhetoric? Automotive? Fossil Fuels? Maybe the big financial institutions that are gambling on the housing bubble?

[@AldanFerrox]

I mean, it's Cato, he almost certainly is.

[@wclifton968gameplaystutorials]

He probably gets a lot of funding from the Koch Brothers who are huge "Libertarian" oil-tycoons whom are known for funding the Cato Institute but if even they fired O'Toole then there must've been some friction against his ideas probably even from the Koch family itself since the CATO Institute is supposed to promote free-market entrepeneurship (capitalism) of which O'Toole's ideas goes against...

[@ianhomerpura8937]

@@wclifton968gameplaystutorials this is plausible, given how many libertarians have also joined the YIMBY movements

[@juanjuri6127]

"So he's an idiot?" "Densification was a communist plot: The soviets favored apartment blocks because they'd be easier to bomb in case of a revolt" "So he's an idiot."

[@Bustermachine]

The impressive thing is that it's dumb even if you start with the assumption that the soviets were evil, since especially in Russia, you can just freeze them out in winter by blockading fuel and power supplies.

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

Yes

[@monolith94]

Did you know that the soviets crushed more peasant revolts than the Czar did?

[@20035079]

@@monolith94 Are you unironically arguing for the Czar, the kingdom that kept Russia engulfed in ACTUAL FEUDALISM until the fucking 20th century? THAT Czar?!

[@LaserBread]

@@monolith94 Source?

[@mdhazeldine]

I like your systematic and calm, rational style of dismantling irrational arguments. I don't know why I didn't think of it before now, but there's an interesting parallel between housing density and transportation density. The single family home is the equivalent of the private car and a condo block is the equivalent of a train or bus. One is just way more efficient than the other.

[@HallsofAsgard96]

AND they go together!!! When u go to a neighborhood w/ only single family homes theres lots of cars vs transit tends to thrive on dense housing.

[@Maxime_K-G]

Very good point. I never explicitly thought of it like that but it makes tons of sense. The word symbiosis comes to mind.

[@svenjorgensenn8418]

You can say what you want, but urbanists are all fascists. You guys are control freaks that will gladly steal land and rights for your agenda. Just like China did to build the 3 gorges damn.

[@Nouvellecosse]

Just goes to show why conspiracy theories have become such a prominent part of politics. If you don't like someone's political position, you don't need to actually address the opposing arguments. You just need to attribute a sinister motive to your opposition like "they're communists plotting to enslave everybody" and call it a day. It's fine and even good to point out actual conflicts of interest that could potentially motivate people such as a politician receiving donations for a special interest, but attributing purely speculative motives is completely different.

[@blakksheep736]

Dear lord. I watch a lot of pseudoscience debunking, and I didn't miss the thread. People are surprisingly irrational, just point at something that goes against what they want to hear and they will eat it. Even if it has no grounding in reality, or relevance to the arguement, whatsoever. Con men gain power by pullling on heartstrings, making people blind to the logic of the other side. This is why mental maturity is so important; there's only so much you can do to logic a person out of a position they didn't logic their way into in the first place.

[@joshl6275]

It's a common tactic in reactionary politics to just tell one lie after the next and appeal to people's worst natures, doing so with such frequency and at such volume that it overwhelms more reasonable voices in the room, eventually dominating the entire conversation altogether. It's textbook fascist tactics. Promoting conspiracy theories and fake news goes hand in hand with the overall strategy and agenda of right wing movements. Then you just have to demonize your foes and promote discord and internal conflicts in society until the whole system breaks, and you can rebuild it in your vision, riding into power on a seething wave of class antagonism, paranoia, anger, and fear which is very often based around the politics of ethnicity, gender, and religion. Meanwhile, the "opposition" are all a bunch of corrupt corporate shills themselves, which only makes it easier for the fascists to swoop in and claim to be the good guys--reformers here to "drain the swamp," when they themselves are the worst swamp creatures of them all. This pretty much describes everything happening in American politics today.

[@hedgehog3180]

It's an ad hominem in it's purest form because the reason why that's a fallacy is because you haven't actually deconstructed the logic of the argument. So what if they're communists? Doesn't mean that the argument can't be right, and the only thing you'd need to do to deconstruct this argument if we considered it relevant was to find someone who was not a communist and still believed it, which is like not hard.

[@elizabethdavis1696]

You showed a lot of attractive brick buildings in this video. I think that’s important in preventing nimbyism NIMBYs rarely enter the buildings that they object too so much there only experience of the new development is it’s exterior so they should make sure the exterior of new developments are attractive to the existing residents by blending new buildings into the existing buildings

[@elizabethdavis1696]

Paige Saunders has a video titled “why are condos ugly” that is good to watch to understand building exteriors

[@willpeterson3943]

The people wanting to keep their neighborhood intact or whatever are also the ones complaining that their adult kids won't move out...but good luck affording a single family home in the us as a

[@camthesaxman3387]

But if he's a libertarian, then we should get rid of restrictive zoning and let the markets decide which density is appropriate.

[@ziba89]

😂 'goodbye San Diego ' got me ...I was living in San Diego before moving back to Montreal...omg how much I hated how the city was built...you can't do anything without a car...my work commute was a meager 15km on a highway (obviously everything is a highway in southern California)... Yet if I wanted to bike to work in the beautiful 20°C weather all year long, it would be a near death experience of 25km bike ride...omg how much I hated the car dependency...if I didn't live in a more walkable neighborhood there near Balboa park...it would have been depressing, despite it being a beautiful place. Oh note. A 15km commute on a highway to work would take 1-2 hours :) imagine that hell.

[@ziba89]

@@asdfghjklqwertyuiopzxcvbnm2281 depends on where you need to go -- nothing easily connects to La Jolla UTC - yes you can take a bus, but that takes 1.5 hours for a practically 15 minute drive (if not within traffic) -- that is not reasonable by any standards as a public transit. Trolly stations go very specifics ways and are not interconnected. the downtown-UTC route 163-805 or highway 5 is a very busy route for people commuting back and forth, and there's no straight forward and easily accessible path via public transit or any other mode of transportation to get between those two points.

[@jayski9410]

The real issue is viewing housing as a static problem. Our needs and wants change over time as our income, political inclinations, and families evolve. That's why advocating for just one type of housing can never do the job. Evey city needs a full spectrum of housing choices in order to be healthy. During my 70 years so far; I've live in suburbs, city centers (on the 41st floor of a skyscraper), a boarding house, a dormitory, a sleeping room (with no kitchen & a bathroom down the hall), and these days I'm back in a suburb near LAX in a single family house with a big yard. But I'm sure this is not the end. There is probably an assisted living spot or nursing home with my name on it in the future. So mix use and variety looks like the best course of action to me.

[@HallsofAsgard96]

The tradeoff thing you mentioned is SOO TRUEEE. I remember my dad telling me that he opted to live in the city in a smaller apartment while his coworkers decided to buy large homes in the suburbs and commute. He told me though the benefits came with hidden costs as their families often needed more than one car and their commutes were as long as two hours in each direction while his was usually 20 minutes. Pluses and minuses w/ everything.

[@baronvonlimbourgh1716]

Welcome to life lol.

[@HallsofAsgard96]

@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 Yup choices like do I fart now and poison all the people on this train? Or do I suffer till I get home? Decisions Decisions...

[@baronvonlimbourgh1716]

@@HallsofAsgard96 if that will be the biggest issue for people at that point it was more then worth it 👍

[@HallsofAsgard96]

@@techtutorvideos 💀💀💀

[@MrOiram46]

And then there are those who are lucky enough to work from home

[@anthonydelfino6171]

It's hilarious that he opposes denser housing while also arguing you can't develop because of someone else not wanting to loose their views. San Francisco, where I live, has had this problem over and over. Someone wants to build a new, denser, housing complex, but people who already own a home or condo say they can't build that unit because of a shadow it would cast on a sidewalk at the wrong time of day, or because it might obstruct the views of people on lower floors.

[@camthesaxman3387]

I also think they want to keep the housing shortage so that their property value continues to skyrocket.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

@@camthesaxman3387 100% that. Which is also related. If your multi million dollar condo loses it's view of the Bay, it drops in value. But in general it's true. With real estate as a commodity, people who own it have a vested interest in keeping supply restricted so the value of their own property continues to increase.

[@wwm84]

And they are typically the same people who complain about the homeless being everywhere. Yet oppose the easiest solution to it.

[@allanboutilier2724]

My jaw dropped when you read the comments saying they didn't want minorities live in their "beautiful neighbourhoods"!!!

[@sybrandwoudstra9236]

Why are you suprised? These people see gang violence on TV and someone losing his or her job because of someone migrating into the country took the job for less money. Then they had a guy for president who told them Mexicans bring drugs, crime, and rape. They think a bunch of people from Mexico (who are also christians like a lot of Americans) are going to do all kinds of scary things while in reality they will not.

[@GCarty80]

I suspect they want to keep poor people (regardless of race) out of their neighborhoods, both out of fear of crime and because American public schools are funded by local property taxes rather than state or federal taxes, meaning that an influx of poor people into a neighborhood will worsen school quality.

[@debordeleur2005]

Turns out people want to live in an area where their kids won’t be bullied, racketed or killed on their way to school, who knew.

[@20035079]

@@debordeleur2005 I wonder what the cause of that might be. Oh well, better to just ignore all that and pretend that the people doing this are doing it because of some innate natural sense of having to do crime, or whatever. In any case this backfires, we'll just have to put out more police to quell the outrage. Because as we all know, if there's anything the last 60 or so years taught us, more police obviously means less crime!

[@debordeleur2005]

@@20035079 not an innate sense no. A detrimental culture and upbringing, more likely. Well guess what , less police doesn’t mean less crime either so… And ultimately, the children getting racketed or raped are not responsible for the state of the world as it is, so there is not justification for stopping their parents from trying to protect them. I don’t know why you have such an imperative to see children getting bullied and such…

[@MrKyledane]

I'm realizing that my neighborhood/block is a pretty strong argument against pretty much the entirety of O'Toole's argument. We have a massive park complex at the end of the block (amenity), with all of the closest housing being multiunit apartments, probably 60-100 units between several complexes. Yet, the other half of the neighborhood is all single family, with one particular stretch including some of the most expensive homes in the area (> $1M homes). All of this is within an easy walk, and the folks in the apartments definitely make their presence known in the more expensive areas (walking their dogs, you know how it is). Our home values are BOOMING.

[@georgeschmall9254]

Hyper Capitalism is not thw aolution my friend

[@MrKyledane]

@@georgeschmall9254 Did you watch this video? I think you didn't because my comment is basically a statement of fact (not a "solution") which I pointed out as evidence to refute an argument discussed in the video. Please go back and do your homework before replying again.

[@r-gart]

Yep, that's the way to go and how I am seeing new developments being built which are focusing on walkability: medium-rise residential with amenities and commercial areas and a 5-minute-walk sprawl of small lot detatched houses nearby. It's the best of both worlds IMO

[@walkerb9]

“They fixed this first by deed restrictions and later by zoning.” This is otherwise known as red-lining or keeping the undesirable people out of the neighborhood. The problems with low income neighborhoods has more to do with extreme income equality. There would be less disruption if low income folks were simply part of the neighborhood. Strangely enough, the deed restrictions in my use modest ranch-style house include the stipulation that the original home owners could not oppose the constructions of apartment complexes in the neighborhood. Decades later, that density makes my suburban neighborhood walkable. Our cities would be more healthy if the people who serve us at the local Starbucks or McDonalds could afford to live in the neighborhood.

[@Bustermachine]

I think a big part of this is that, once suburbanism took off, people were buying not just a house, but a surrounding environment. Changing thata environment is, in their minds, tantamount to taking away what they've purchased. People generally don't like that. The thing is . . . A city is not a static THING . . . They need to be able to change with the needs of the city and the times and this is something that a lot of cities are spending a LOT of resources to not have to do. And, I will give it this, it's a bipartisan problem. Change is scary. It scares me too, even though I know its needed. Just pick your political philosophy or affiliation and you can find someone preaching for suburbia.

[@KRYMauL]

Nolan Gray has a good book on this, deed restrictions actually can be used as an effective opt out of zoning. Also, there are many people who will run make something in their garage anyway.

[@GCarty80]

@@Bustermachine The price of a home actually has two parts: the price of the building itself (which is down to construction costs) and the price of the land title (which is indeed a product of the surrounding environment).

[@roach590]

Randal O'Toole is amazing listening to him is like watching one man's struggle to carefully construct the worst arguments in the history of mankind

[@ColonelRPG]

So O'toole is one of those individuals whose job is to be wrong about everything :P

[@kennethridesabike]

Interestingly enough, from reading his blogs, he actually understands and is caring about housing affordability. But he comes to all the wrong conclusions about how to fix it. Id much rather deal with O Toole than with a politician who fakes caring about affordability

[@nataliekhanyola5669]

He's a liberterian so... yeah. 🙄🙄

[@ColonelRPG]

@@nataliekhanyola5669 Fair.

[@deriansilva368]

With density you also get local businesses popping up to serve demand in those places, which encourages neighborhoods growth. With low rise dense neighborhoods which would be favorable to smaller towns this would further increase tax revenue and community building.

[@StephenMeansMe]

O'Toole's "restrictions on single family homes bad, restrictions on denser housing good" worldview makes more sense if there's a conspiracy element. Like, if freedom-loving people "naturally" prefer to own single family homes and hate living in denser housing, but planners simply hate freedom and just want to control people, then of course they want to develop land with dense housing no matter what people would most prefer. (I guess that's sort of like how people buy homes in the exurbs even if they would rather live in the city, if they can't afford to buy in the city.) Or, he really is the anti-planner, so everything planners want must be bad by definition. It borders on Ayn Rand nonsense but it would at least explain the difference.

[@blakksheep736]

Conspiracy go brrrrr. How many organisations do people think have the sole goal of keeping them oppressed and in the dark at all times?

[@calvinbaII]

I think it's more along the idea of choice. People like O'Toole are extreme to one side, but some people/NGOs/think tanks on the opposite side are equally extreme. In planning programs in Canada they now push Agenda 21/Smart cities concepts as pure fact, an undisputed way forward rather than an ideal worth merely considering. The fact remains that most 20-30 somethings with kids do not want to live in cramped high-density areas if the equal choice is a detached house with a yard. The answer is somewhere in the middle and conceding that without choice, everything will default back to unsustainable 20th century style suburbia in perpetuity. Personally, I believe that neoliberalism's mantra of growthgrowthgrowth is the biggest hinderance on urban planning because unsustainable growth far outpaces the ability to plan sustainably with consideration to choice. Even since the pandemic lockdowns many 'urbanists' have reconsidered their lifestyle priorities and if they could afford it, abandoned the larger cities in favour of exurbia or purely rural village communities to escape density. I wish micro-urbanism was considered as an alternative. I'm from Nova Scotia where a lot of small towns still have old historic/dense downtown cores (mainly university towns or former industrial boom towns of the early 1900s) which are being reconfigured to accommodate more (albeit smaller) city-like services that are walkable or bikeable without the massive crowding density of larger cities. My hometown of about 5k(10k really) has a booming brewery scene, small community-funded transit system, more bike lanes added, art/music/cultural facilities and reconfigured open public spaces and farmers markets that are booming again. You see more and more "come from aways" from Ontario escaping out here because of it; for better or worse.

[@maxwellstarcevich]

@@calvinbaII Interesting and balanced thoughts. I'm finishing my thesis on the potential for the reintroduction of the walled city type precisely to achieve what you are talking about...small, moderate to high density urban areas that are distinct from their surroundings with land outside of the city boundary held in trusts which prevent their constructional development (but allow other kinds of use).

[@calvinbaII]

@@maxwellstarcevich That sounds really interesting, I'd love to read it whenever you finish it, haha!

[@maxwellstarcevich]

@@calvinbaII Sure thing! If you send an email to me I'll send it to you when it is finished. My email is just my firstname.lastname at g mail.

[@Nico_M.]

"You should be able to develop your land as you please!" _(Builds dense housing)_ "No, not like that!"

[@daveharrison84]

If you want a good laugh, there is a PragerU video about how car dependency is good and city planning is bad.

[@funplussmart]

It’s also one of their most disliked videos.

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

Ah yes, America…where we call anything we don’t like Communism!

[@robertcartwright4374]

Well, jock itch is Communism.

[@Earth098]

You brilliantly debunked most of his shallow arguments. To add one more, he does not seem to understand that simply there is no enough land available for everyone to live with a backyard. If everybody lived like that, there won't be any small towns, villages, farms, or natural landscapes. Most of the country will be paved over. In other words, those who live in duplexes and apartments, provide room for those who want to live with a backyard. Last but not least, he needs to visit Europe and see its wonderful cities and towns, to understand what urban planners are talking about.

[@colinmacdonald5732]

Kinda depends where you are. Houston REALLY sprawls, but Texas is practically empty.

[@Firebreath56]

Living in an apartment or a duplex should never be anything more than a temporary arrangement. Human beings aren't meant to live in these giant shared buildings with a couple of rooms. They're almost like prisons. And you don't know that there isn't enough room for everyone to have a backyard. That's nothing more than an extremely broad estimation. You couldn't possibly know that, so we shouldn't start building our whole futures around that, or encouraging people to be miserable in apartments just because of some guy's estimation of the available land on earth. If a city gets too crowded, then people need to live somewhere else. That's how you bring industry to new places, by deciding to open a business in a place that doesn't have it, instead of going to the most populated area where everyone already is and doing it there.

[@Earth098]

@@Firebreath56 Living in an apartment or duplex is miserable if you live in a miserable car oriented city. If you live in a walkable, transit oriented and pleasant city, the whole city is your backyard. I used to live in such a place where I can walk, cycle, escape to a green area, or pop into a nice beautiful part of the city whenever I want. But now I live in a house with a backyard, but, within a car centric neighborhood. Therefore backyard is the only place of respite for me, and I feel like trapped. I really miss the freedom I had to walk where ever I want, whenever I want.

[@JeremyHoffman]

What are you talking about. I live in an awesome condo where I raise my family of four. The grocery store is across the street. We have friendly neighbors who help each other. Millions of people live in multi-family housing quite happily. No one's forcing you to live like we do. But why would you want to make it illegal to build homes like mine for people like me?

[@camthesaxman3387]

I also don't want to keep up a useless lawn every week.

[@718EngrCo]

I have a condo in the Philippines. Over there they have far less rules on development. If you own the property you can do almost anything you want with it. Near the condo is a neighborhood of single family homes. One of the residents decided to open a restaurant, so he turned his house into a restaurant. The creativity and chaos is amazing and the best part is that there’s almost no planning at all. The problem is that when some politician decides it’s time for planning one of his buddies is about to get rich. Pretty much the same as here.

[@realemperorkuzco]

It's kind of unappealing though because in a small town where I spent some of my years in, the differences and clutteredness of varying density is staggering, like there's just a big blue building un the middle of low density houses and citizen-run commercial shops--it's really jarring.

[@MTobias]

I just want to add that higher density doesn't preclude home ownership, as condos allow you to build equity just the same.

[@bkdarkness]

Except that a condo owner has to pay condo fees for as long as they own it even after the mortage is repaid. Which isn't the case with detached housing.

[@MTobias]

@@bkdarkness so? Owners of detached houses also have to pay for maintrnance, which isn't the case for condos. It's not very relevant when it comes to building equity.

[@ryank6322]

@@bkdarkness You still have to pay taxes or you can lose your house.

[@bkdarkness]

@@ryank6322 Same with a condo

[@Bob_Lob_Law]

@@bkdarkness Yeah, exactly lol. There isn't really much of a functional difference.

[@Grantonioful]

Every town of 15 000 or more should have a train station that goes to the nearest bigger city. I live between Gatineau and Montreal on the north side of the Outaouais river. In this rural area, there is always traffic on the country road toward the nearest city (where I work). There even used to be a train but on my commute all I see are new single family developments and no public transportation infrastructure except a bus at 6 am and one at 5pm in both directions.

[@linuxman7777]

That will often just take away from the town itself, in the same way the car does. Making it easier whether by car or by train to reach the bigger metropolis more easily makes it so there is less focus on improving the local town, and bringing more jobs and economic activity in, if everyone can just easily get to the metropolis.

[@cjgeist]

@@linuxman7777 I would think it's the opposite. Better access to the larger city encourages commuting, creating work opportunities for people in the smaller town, and encouraging people to move to the smaller town to commute to the city, increasing land value and boosting the local economy.

[@linuxman7777]

@@cjgeist The opposite happened in Japan, when the Shinkansen opened, many Companies started moving their HQs to Tokyo, even when the company started in a different city. like Komatsu, Honda and many others

[@LPVince94]

@@linuxman7777 Those small towns have still advantages like much cheaper living costs. You don't take that away with a train station. If anything train stations are often the single lifeline keeping small towns from being sucked dry by their metropolitan neighbours. You raised Japan and I offer the many smaller towns in Germany like my hometown. The biggest employer had to declare bankruptcy within 3 years after the line that was connecting us to the big city was closed up, when DB went private. Ever since then population has steadily dropped from 30k to now 21k and continues to do so. Effectively we're dead already and the only ones staying are the old ones and those providing the basic infrastructure for those to live (Old people's homes, super markets and one trucking company).

[@legobro8753]

Same story near me! Live in a 40k town a 40 minute drive south of St. Paul, and found out that we had a train station right in our downtown. As suspected, it closed in the 50s when the interstates were constructed but we didn't even reach a population of 10k until 1990...

[@Alexrocksdude_]

I really like the footage of Canadian cities you guys shoot! Another great video, would like to see more of this kind of video looking into more of the history of urban planning :)

[@anneonymous4884]

"Communism is when you let private sector actors build duplexes, ADUs, townhouses, and apartments. The freer the market, the communister you are." - Karl Marx according to Boomers

[@brushlessmotoring]

I think you have him in his own logic trap: Nimby's should not be able to tell landowners not to spoil their view, because landowners should be able to do what they want (Freedom!) but at the same time, a single family home landowner should not be able to build a 4 story building, because it will spoil the view (of other white people) for the other home owners. Got it. This is a classic raging hypocrite position, where they don't just draw a line in the sand they are just on the "right" side of, they draw a Circle in the Sand (Round and Round) where their position is the righteous one, and anything outside of that is wrong. Loved the quick callout to him getting fired.

[@blakksheep736]

Oh of course. Naturally, the only correct facts are the ones that support his argument.

[@xymaryai8283]

"Exurbs" is an amazing way to describe the car dependent suburbs that are so far away from the city that its not meaningful to say its part of the city, but not far enough to be a town. thankyou for giving me this word!

[@xtrememanster]

"Urban growth boundaries are awful because they limit what you can do with your land based on the consideration that your neighbor wont like the way your new property looks... anyways heres why exclusionary zoning is a good thing and duplexes are literally communism"

[@stepdaddunk1159]

Fun Fact: The reason home ownership skyrocketed from the 40's onward is because of the New Deal, which created the Home Owners Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration to dish out mortgages at exceedingly low entry costs with low payments, apparently so as to prevent further foreclosures following the Great Depression. One of the major reasons for this, though, was to (during a time when trust in free market capitalism was at its lowest in America) entice more people into *investing* into the capitalist system, so that they'd have more to lose if the socialists were to win.

[@Knightmessenger]

Seemed like all that massive gpvernment intervention with the new deal was trying to say the opposite, the free market was a failure and central planning (like NRA setting prices based on what big corporations wanted) was better. Did people actually think it would promote capitalism? Also the FHA was racist as that is where redlining comes from.

[@stepdaddunk1159]

@@Knightmessenger I'm *very* aware that the FHA was racist, and I'm not condoning any of the actions. In fact, what I commented comes from "The Color of Law", a book pretty much about the FHA's racism. Let me put it this way: Yes, the state intervened, not quite "free market". However, this intervention led to what? A socialist uprising? No, it "solved" the problems of free markets by forcing small amounts capital into the hands of the growing middle class, just so the markets could remain (that way those who were on top could stay on top). With a middle class who owned capital, any truly socialist ideology could not build significant support, instead resulting in the neoliberal unregulated market hellscape we have today

[@Knightmessenger]

@@stepdaddunk1159 you know you're the second person (in comments on this video) to say the government intervention of the new deal prevented even bigger government socialists from gaining power. I find it counterintuitive. Ive heard of the book (but not read) Color of Law and thought wouldn't it have just been better if the government didn't give out mortgages in the first place? I mean if it was up to banks, they would face market pressures to not be racist while the FHA as a government monopoly, was more insulated in their ideology. The idea that the country was ready for big government one way or another seems strange because the exact opposite happened in the 1920s. The depression of 1921 is often forgotten because it lasted only about a year. If FDR had followed up on his campaign (which actually criticized Hoover for spending too much, VP Garvey even accused Hoover of taking America on the path toward socialism) and reversed course, not doubled down, FDR could claim he was just doing the things that led to the roaring 20s. Would this not have gone over well? Did public attitudes shift so quickly?

[@RoboJules]

Libertarians who don't support throwing out North America's ridiculous zoning laws are not libertarians. A proper libertarian would argue that a person's property is his to do with how he pleases, as long is it's not harming or infringing on neighboring properties. One cannot push the benefits of free market economics if they want to use government to jerrymander the system in their favor.

[@blakksheep736]

Naturally, the system is only justified if it works in thier favour.

[@hylje]

But all land use infringes on the neighbours. It casts shade, causes noise pollution, traffic and business that disturbs and affects properties around it. If infringing on the neigbours is not what libertarians want, the sound ethical stance is to not allow any land use, perhaps excepting the currently existing land use which has become inexplicably acceptable over time. The position of maximum freedom always, fundamentally, involves a generous zone of commons extending deep into your neighbours’ territory that you’re totally permitted to infringe upon. Yes, you can make noise, you can do stuff, you can attract other people to visit you, you can build stuff. Even if your neighbour doesn’t like it. They can go pound sand. A position of reasonable freedom would refit zoning into various zones where the zone of commons has various depths into your neighbours’ territories. If you don’t like your neighbours showing signs of existence, there can be a zone for you. Far away from anyone else. But the more popular a place is, the more you must put up with the bullshit of your neighbours. Pick your poison between extreme remoteness and other people constantly infringing on you.

[@pedrob3953]

But that requires honesty.

[@Aubreykun]

@@hylje The Libertarian stance is that abridging and violating property rights is inherently unjust. It's not starting from a "utility" standpoint but a moral one. As in, yes you must put up with your neighbors as long as they do not *aggress upon you or your property.* The initiation of force is unjust, but the response to that intiation of force with force is fine. Essentially the argument is that while shade, noise and such could be a problem, it's less of a problem than violating peoples' rights.

[@LaserBread]

Capitalists use the state apparatus to fill their coffers. Tale as old as time.

[@bikinglemur7738]

The "protect housing as an investment" argument for low density makes no sense to me since the dollars you would have otherwise spent on a more expensive house could just be spent on other investments Keep in mind the S&P 500 has outperformed real estate over time, i.e. even the current homeowners who have benefitted from appreciation in real estate would probably have been better off themselves if they spent less on their homes and more on other investments

[@GCarty80]

Isn't the reason why "affordable" is a word used in the context of housing to mean "government subsidized" the fact that if the free market price of housing were "affordable" then it would by definition be useless as an investment?

[@nicknickbon22]

@@GCarty80 imagine a town hall meeting where someone says: “who wants affordable housing?” And then everybody raises hands. Then the same person asks “ Who wants his own house to be affordable?” And nobody raises hands. But I would say that you can solve this sort of intricacy by starting considering housing not an investment. As the comment points out, today we have plenty of investing options with very different level of risks, so housing investments is starting to seem a relic of the past where investment options were few and markets were not as accessible as they are today. And from a philosophical and economic perspective, housing investment is one the worst because that money doesn’t go funding new and innovative companies and ideas but it is stored in a building for decades to come.

[@GCarty80]

@@nicknickbon22Another point that needs to me made is that the tax systems in many jurisdictions specifically privilege housing as an investment vehicle. For example, in the US the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 abolished capital gains tax on sales of homes up to $250k for singles, or up to $500k for married couples. In the same year, Ireland abolished capital gains tax on home sales with the Taxes Consolidation Act, while primary residences in the UK have been exempt ever since Capital Gains Tax was introduced there in 1965 (and Council Tax -- which contributes to local government funding in the UK -- is regressive and hasn't been re-rated since its introduction in 1993).

[@nicknickbon22]

@@GCarty80 yeah that’s a big point, it’s interesting that when people talk about reducing or eliminating capital gains on investments there are lots of protests, but the protests are very reduced when the investiment is housing.

[@toptiergaming6900]

The whole idea of comunist style apartments was to provide lots of housing for relatively cheap.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

50 years ago, the "Anti-Planner" was Jane Jacobs, who was fighting AGAINST suburbanisation and IN FAVOUR of walkability and transportation choice. I think it's worth appreciating how the field of Urban Planning has done a complete 180 in the past half century, to the point that the radical opposition is now from otherwise conservative-minded people fighting to save government regulations which reduce housing choice or transportation choice.

[@Arjay404]

WTF?! How does offering free transit keep poor people oppressed?!

[@somebonehead]

These people see public transporatation as something that increases reliance on the government to provide for people, and they see private vehicle ownership as enabling freedom and independence. And so by disincentivizing car ownership, they're really trying to limit people's autonomy. They're not entirely wrong about cars offering a level of autonomy that public transportation can't provide, which is why I disagree with the complete banning of private vehicles, but they don't realize that they're trading their beholdence to a public transportation provider to another beholdence, be that the oil companies or the car manufacturers or what have you. This is why I believe it's important to divest our transportation options.

[@ianhomerpura8937]

@@somebonehead they seem to forget about financial autonomy. In the long run, using transit on a regular basis is much cheaper than paying for car maintenance monthly.

[@somebonehead]

@@ianhomerpura8937 That doesn't matter. If that mattered people would never use private planes ever. If you make enough money you can afford the luxury of owning a private vehicle.

[@ianhomerpura8937]

@@somebonehead like, you know, a $15,000 Cervelo P5X. It's not only cars that can be expensive.

[@Moses_VII]

"Oh The Urbanity!" needs to publish a book!

[@PredatoryQQmber]

The man even is called "Tool", you cannot make this up >_< What a villain, a champion of bad architecture !

[@wiesorix]

Great video, one of the best "response videos" I've seen in a long time. I think you've managed to strike the right balance between seriously engaging with the antiplanner's arguments, debunking them and placing them in the right context. Very well done!

[@astrahcat1212]

I love how everyone can have a bipartisan agreement. Cars suck, concrete sucks, when you live in a nice place that has bicycle trails and a ton of parks everywhere, if you're a bicyclist, you get intoxicated by it and then going back to places like the countryside where you can't go anywhere without a car becomes like a prison sentence. Electric bicycles are like mopeds you can take from residential road to sidewalk to bike trail back to sidewalk and rinse and repeat. In Cary NC I felt absolute freedom compared to living now in western NC. I'm moving soon, I hope back to southern Charlotte NC, a really nice area with sprawling bicycle trails and parks. Personally, I grew up on a farm with 100 acres and felt so much less free there than anywhere I've lived, it was a 45 minute drive from a grocery store.

[@paxundpeace9970]

When we all move to rural area's they would become suburban too. It has a tail. What once was country side became a suburb with in a few decades or even only years.

[@vanderleijunior1461]

I want to hear from him about the Netherlands and the oppressive Communist Party regime there. Jokes aside, as an ex-libertarian this is so typical, hypocrisy is the main argument for these people. Glad I changed my mind in time, before libertarian -> alt rigth pipeline

[@FrameDrumAndFlute]

I very much appreciate discussions that don't involve name-calling. You show respect to your listeners when you present opposing views and let your audience decide. Thank you.

[@Waldemarvonanhalt]

IMO it's logically inconsistent to claim to be libertarian and then staunchly defend Euclidian zoning. I thought libertarians are supposed to love the pre-Wilsonian USA, with it's "old" (ie, mixed-use zoned, mid to high density) style of urban development.

[@Wafflepudding]

He's the 1 out of everyone 10 dentists recommending sugar paste and coke as toothpaste and mouthwash

[@jimdotcom1972]

every apartment block in finland is built with a bomb shelter in the basement, problem solved

[@ScarceCastle2]

The swiss do it too, and with extra capacity for guests! Nowadays, it's a great place to store your extra stuff, your potatoes, and your cheese in a relatively cold place

[@KingKafei]

Notice how he doesn't talk about how urban sprawl bankrupts cities as the cost to upkeep its crumbling infrastructure greatly exceeds the tax revenue the city generates. I already saw not just bikes who made the video about urban centers subsidising suburbs comment below so I'll assume you may be familiar with the video and topic.

[@andrewdiamond2697]

"Anti planner"?!? So the highways and massive additional infrastructure that is needed to support his vision of sprawl is going to be made from unicorn farts and pixie dust??!?

[@firefly666angel]

I think something left out of the discussion of home ownership is how racialized groups were systematically prevented from accessing home ownership or had the value of their homes stall effectively leaving generations of people behind due to race

[@somebonehead]

It's no coincidence that those same historically disenfranchised people are often the first to turn around and become the most ardent of NIMBYs once they actually become home owners, or accumulate some other kind of wealth.

[@GCarty80]

@@somebonehead It's the same with jobs: if immigrants "steal" jobs it is at the expense primarily of the previous load of immigrants, not the long-established population.

[@cebo494]

"Maybe a single family home in Tulksa OK is cheaper than an apartment in NY. But it doesn't mean that NY could become more affordable by banning or demolishing aparments." IDK, if they destroyed all of the reasons that people actually want to live there, maybe demand would be destroyed the same way and prices would go down somewhat. Who would want to live in a NY metro area without NYC in the middle of it.

[@blakksheep736]

I love how hilariously contradictory this "solution" is.

[@pedrob3953]

Imagine if NYC had the same density as Tulsa. The commute would take forever, not to speak of the traffic problems. It would be like Los Angeles with twice the size and population.

[@blakksheep736]

@@pedrob3953 then we could build good alternatives to driving to lighten the load on the streets.

[@GCarty80]

@@pedrob3953 Houston (roughly 2 million inhabitants IIRC) is probably about the biggest you can get for a low-priced sprawling city.

[@pedrob3953]

@@GCarty80 Right. Houston is bigger than New York City in area with 4x less population.

[@prolarka]

Once the gas prices in the US are as high as in the rest of the developed world, you will realize why other countries build their houses and infrastructure as they do.

[@tonywalters7298]

His argument seems to be a bit contradictory: No, you cannot build higher desity housing, but farmers should be able to build subdivisions on their land

[@barvdw]

It seems because it is contradictory.

[@twgood5882]

Joel Kotkin is a less inflammatory critic of urbanism, or of urbanistic compulsions.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Thanks, I'll check him out! Always good to hear alternative perspectives even if we disagree in the end.

[@EvanDerickson]

@@OhTheUrbanity Wendell Cox, as well. Those three-Kotkin, Cox, and O'Toole-are literally the only three serious anti-urbanists I have ever heard of.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

@@EvanDerickson Thanks! Will check out Wendell Cox too.

[@danielmoehrle3774]

I'm an Ottawa Realtor and I find your videos very informative and well put together.

[@MzEliseKatrine]

You guys forgot that we all settled in Toronto in the first place because it had good farmland. If we develop all the farmland we die. Also we need contiguous green space to support our animal life and our mental health.

[@clearcut6818]

The biggest problem here is supply. Even if your house appreciates in value, because most of us only own one principal home, if you can't get a replacement house quickly and efficiently, then high housing prices just means higher transactional costs and more opportunity costs when you move.

[@GCarty80]

Isn't HELOCing a big reason why homeowners crave rising house prices?

[@Raeistic]

I love you guys. I love this channel. Please keep making this content! Maybe someday, slowly, we’ll convince enough people that this is a problem and the infrastructure in the us will slowly but steadily evolve 💜

[@airgamer1403]

This guy literally got dumped by Cato, I can't believe people still take him seriously even after he got fired by his puppeteers.

[@GrantAmann]

woah sweet to see the Antiplanner mentioned outside of a blog. Thanks for the video!

[@squelchedotter]

"CATO Institute" Okay that's all I needed to see edit: For those unaware, cato is a think tank that basically just argues rich people should get to control everything

[@ianhomerpura8937]

They've become pro-density nowadays after firing O'Toole. Hahaha.

[@squelchedotter]

@@ianhomerpura8937 I guess the argument flipped from "real estate moguls should be able to build vast suburbs" to "real estate moguls should be able to build vast skyscrapers"

[@_DeathDreams_]

If Ukraine was built in the American style of planning, literally no one would be able to get out because of the traffic at the start of the war, trains were pretty key in getting people out

[@codex4046]

This really opened my eyes, people really can be serious even though their arguments are similar to those of an internet troll.

[@Bulkje]

Funny how none of the research takes into account the increased costs of water, roads and other amenities for sprawl. Local government is in debt.

[@kevinbryer2425]

The fundamental problem with suburbia is not the density, it's the suburbians, most of whom don't take full advantage of the extra space they have. Most don't use a portion of their lawn to grow foodstuffs to reduce their expenses or even bolster their income, they they grow inedible foliage at great expense. Most of them don't use their large basements or garages as workshops to engage in a productive home industry or business that doesn't require a regular commute, they use them to store junk. They don't rake in extra income by hosting an auxiliary dwelling unit. And then they get their local government to pass ordinances that make all such productive activity illegal. The benefits of low density are indisputable. There is so much that home owners could do on even a relatively modest suburban lot that make they them so much more desirable than the concrete shoebox in the sky. They are simply don't do it.

[@debordeleur2005]

There’s more to life than « extra income ». Having a lawn or a garden where your kids can play safely for exemplex

[@saynotop2w]

That guy is still living in 1950s

[@robtyman4281]

"because California is already dense enough"! lol Los Angeles has the largest urban sprawl of any city in the world, other than Tokyo. Its neighborhoods go on forever.

[@davidbarts6144]

The argument that lack of single-family zoning would discourage people from buying a home is nuts. Most (or maybe even all) of Vancouver’s “single family” neighbourhoods allow one or two accessory suites in the main building AND a laneway house in the rear, so almost certainly wouldn’t qualify as “single family” in O’Toole’s world. Yet prices here are sky high and houses sell with days of listing. Exactly the opposite would be the case if living with or next door to tenants ruined housing values.

[@Cyrus992]

Me and my friend debated him in 2013. Doesn’t want to admit that even the Houston area has codes that limit traditional urban planning

[@GCarty80]

IIRC Houston doesn't have zoning, but it does have quite onerous parking minimums, along with widespread use of covenants that amount to a kind of privatized zoning.

[@NamelessProducts]

I think this may be this channels best video yet, and all of your videos are *extremely* high quality. Absolutely superb. Bravo

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Wow, thank you!

[@sethquick4367]

This has been the best video you have ever made!! So good! Keep the good work up y’all

[@Nouvellecosse]

Wow what an amazing video! We hear these arguments so often that it's great to finally have someone debunk them in a single place. O'Toole has been an annoyance for years and needs to be addressed, but to be honest, Wendell Cox is probably just as deserving of a debunk video lol.

[@wipis59]

I grew up in the suburbs and often vacationed or traveled in rural areas. I always thought I'd never want to live in a city. Now I live in a nice city with great walkablitity and pretty good public transport (that's getting better and better). I'm not sure I could ever go back up the suburbs unless it is an older style with mixed housing and public transport to a walkable downtown (ie Boston metro, old Chicago etc). People who say they think most people don't want to live in a crowded, dirty city with a tiny apartment probably haven't tried it or has only lived in a shitty city ruined by bad planning.

[@blakksheep736]

F to the people who got negative shout outs in this vid. "I don't want non-R1 zoning because I don't want to live near people with different races and voting preferences from me". Yipes, man, I thought we were past racism now.

[@debordeleur2005]

If said group of people has a way higher crime rate, and if people of different politics vote to lower the local budget on security, it’s totally normal to want those kind of neighbors to move in.

[@Waldemarvonanhalt]

IMO the urban development of the post-WW2 Soviet Union was financially frugal and pretty smart in terms of how they were laid out so that people could access most services and transit within walking distance, while still providing pretty good open/green spaces around apartment buildings. If you're going to critique anything, it's probably the construction quality or the fact families had to make do with less than 79 square meters of floor space.

[@GCarty80]

I guess that the Soviet Union does show one of the big disadvantages of high-rise living: because construction costs increase dramatically once you get higher than 5 floors, apartments ended up being very cramped. Although big apartment blocks are more efficient to heat (lower surface are to volume ratio) which comes in handy in a part of the world with such freezing winters.

[@BH-rc2pv]

I do really appreciate how this video dealt legitimately with a critics opinion. There are logical arguments against what we want and we have to respectfully answer them if we actually want a real world social change.

[@avinashreji60]

People like him don’t need to be logically argued against. He’s just some corporate tool. Others maybe

[@Snorkitty]

Also I don’t really like how his blog has comments sections where guests (as late as a couple years ago) threatened urban planners for doing their job. He admits he needed to moderate the comments better, but that persisted for years.

[@Lafv]

The fact that he points out the correlation between density and affordability is funny. He’s so close to getting the point… that denser places are places where people want to live.

[@gabriell.4440]

Me: "What if I don't want to sit in traffic on my commute and walk or bike to work instead?" O'Toole: "You must be a dirty commie!"

[@namenamington]

I was genuinly interested in hearing an actual defence of suburban sprawl, it sounded intruiging since the conensus is so much the other way, but there's always points that can be made against anything and things to be learned. And then the first line is "density is a communist plot!" :D

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Yeah! We were genuinely hoping for some good arguments to consider.

[@mk-oc7mt]

We’re building a ton of high rise residential in CA, and while I’m all for the density, especially infill and near transit, I really hope that low rise takes off soon with all of our zoning changes.

[@GCarty80]

High-density development should be clustered around transit stations like in Japan.

[@einar8019]

@@GCarty80 or just build mid/low rise and then you dont have to build high rise

[@GCarty80]

@@einar8019 Land speculation is a huge impediment to densification, as it leads to land being wasted as parking lots because the landowner is holding out for a high-rise developer when the economics would only justify a low- or mid-rise building on that site. Cities in Pennsylvania used land value taxation to fight this problem.

[@Prodigious1One]

Thanks for the video essay. I like urban density and being able to live and do most things within walking distance of your home and/or take public transit and avoid driving a car.

[@lubovlang]

00:33 Hello! I'm from Russia and this is the craziest lie I've heard about the USSR. No one has ever built high-rise buildings to bomb their citizens. If the communists wanted to bomb their cities, then why didn't they bomb anything in 1991 when the USSR collapsed? If you look at the history of Russian architecture, you will see that houses with two or more floors were built back in the time of the Tsars. In Soviet times, the number of floors just gradually increased. Under Stalin, there were several types of buildings: high and multi-storey apartment buildings, as well as apartment buildings with 2, 3 and 4 floors. After the Second World War, many buildings in our country were destroyed and millions of people needed housing. During the time of Khrushchev, the idea of ​​building mass housing of the same type appeared. The more identical houses you build, the cheaper it gets. There were several series or types of houses. Most often these were apartment buildings on 5, and sometimes on 4 floors. It was built up immediately with districts, public transport lines were opened (bus, tram or trolleybus) and kindergartens, schools and hospitals were additionally built within walking distance. The houses were either with a large store on the ground floor, or with or without a store on the corner. Also, various organizations were located on the first floors. For example, post, telegraph, bank branch and others. Now entrepreneurs are buying apartments on the first floors and turning them into commercial real estate. In my area, these are pharmacies, hairdressers, notary and lawyer offices, real estate agencies, repair shops, cafes and various specialized stores (grocery stores, clothing and footwear stores, toy stores, handbag stores, meat and fish stores, beer and alcohol stores, shops with computers, telephones and household appliances, jewelry stores, cosmetics and household chemicals stores and many others), This is very convenient because I have everything I need within walking distance. I don't need to buy a car and drive to buy bread and milk. Under Brezhnev, apartment buildings appeared on 9, 10 and 12 floors. After the collapse of the USSR, we began to build completely different houses with different numbers of floors and area. If you open Google maps and look at the photos of our cities, you will see a huge variety of houses built at different times.

[@Theophan123]

The striking feature of Soviet-era apartment blocks is that they're designed to function as mini neighborhoods with offices, shops and stores and not purely residential buildings. O Toole thinks that these apartment blocks are just meant to lock up people inside.

[@sdeepj]

Urbanization fosters democracy, not authoritarianism. If it was the other way around, Pyongyang, North Korea would be a lot bigger than Seoul, South Korea. The North Korean government actively prevents people from moving there. Mao’s Cultural Revolution was to get people out the city and back to the farms. The same with Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Cities attract people from all over, creating a place of the exchanging of ideas and opportunities.

[@GCarty80]

One thing though about communist states is that they are centrally planned economies, with the emphasis on "central". They are extremely unequal, but while inequality in capitalist societies is based on money, in communist societies it's based on proximity to the capital city. In many Russian small towns under the USSR there was no food available in the shops (because any produced locally was sent to Moscow) meaning the residents depended on subsistence farming on their dachas and/or on the black market to survive. Provincial Russians also used to go on shopping trips by train to Moscow (sometimes these were organized by their employers) until the regime introduced "purchaser cards" to prevent shopping by non-locals.