When should the state jump in to address local problems?
I’ve been skeptical of statewide accessory dwelling unit (ADU) and zoning reform for a while now. As I tried to articulate in this episode of the Upzoned podcast, my objection is not to relaxing ADU regulations (an unqualified improvement). My concern is more philosophical in nature and is encapsulated by something Strong Towns founder and president Chuck Marohn wrote in 2017:
The ongoing series I've been doing on incremental development, and the re-posting of the series I wrote last year on Portland's housing emergency, has brought the critics out—friend and antagonist alike—to attack my simple ways. “Chuck, you're usually so smart but you just don't get these fast growing cities.”
That is true, at least the latter half: I don't get these fast growing cities. They don't make any sense to me. Buried beneath the rent controls, inclusionary zoning mandates, luxury condos, billion-dollar build-it-and-they-will-come transportation investments, subsidized parking and the like, it's impossible to figure out what distortion is causing what to happen. I find the simple narratives put forth to be lacking (and very convenient as they each generally support the worldview of those making that case).
He goes on to argue:
In the complex, adaptive system that is a unique human body, how do all of these different interventions react and interact to make the underlying problems better or worse? How do those underlying problems manifest as symptoms, the pain that tells us something isn't working? Nassim Taleb, the Patron Saint of Strong Towns Thinking, suggests an approach to discovering the answer that he calls Via Negativa.
Through Via Negativa, we get closer to understanding the uncertainty of complex systems by removing distorting interventions. As he states, we reduce the “branching chains of unintended consequences” which we don't even understand (though, again, charlatans and fools may think they do—and they'll even use data to “prove” their hunch). My fixation on incremental, and my extensive writing on Portland's housing emergency, are not about giving a solution. They are about getting us to a system that produces a solution.
This essay is the first in a three part series exploring the pitfalls of statewide urban reform, and considering some example reforms that honor complexity by “getting us to a system that produces a solution” rather than “giving a solution.”
When your washing machine breaks, you replace the broken part. When something in your city breaks, it’s not that simple.
“Fixing” Complex Systems
A hallmark of complex systems is that they create their own “solutions”. In other words, human intervention to “fix” a complex system does not impose a new equilibrium per se. Rather, interventions introduce new pressures into the system that course through the various feedback loops (often in unpredictable ways) and the system reaches a new equilibrium on its own.
When your washing machine breaks, you can easily replace the broken part. Doing so will not result in new, unexpected behavior on the part of the washing machine. In fact, the reason you know the machine is broken is that it completely stops functioning. This is a complicated machine, not a complex system. Complex systems don’t stop functioning when something is broken; they adapt, often in ways we don’t fully understand and can’t predict. In fact, a complex system can’t really be said to have “broken”. It simply exhibits behavior that doesn’t fit our desired outcomes.
Cities are complex, adaptive systems, not washing machines. To the extent something is “broken” in a city and we try to fix it, our efforts are subject to interactions between countless variables, none of which can be completely isolated. The law of induced demand in traffic congestion is a textbook case. We attempt to fix a problem with traffic congestion by building new road capacity, which is quickly filled as the extra capacity creates favorable conditions for that extra trip to the dry cleaner, or for a developer to build new houses just a little further out. The system finds a new equilibrium that stubbornly refuses to conform to our preferences for free-flowing traffic during peak demand.
Fixing Bad Zoning
I have little faith that cities will voluntarily reform ADU laws or other exclusionary zoning practices of their own accord under the status quo. On this, I agree with advocates for statewide action. My concern is that the push for statewide zoning reform is, in Chuck’s words, an attempt at giving a solution rather than getting to a system that produces a solution. In other words, we’re better served by reforms that eliminate bad incentives than by reforms that pile new requirements onto the system to address undesirable outcomes that result from bad incentives.
“We’re better served by reforms that eliminate bad incentives than by reforms that pile new requirements onto the system to address undesirable outcomes that result from bad incentives. ”
I am strongly opposed to ADU restrictions such as owner occupancy requirements, design standards, and size limitations. I am also supportive of efforts to eliminate bans on missing middle housing. At the same time, I recognize that different communities across a state have different needs and there could be some situations where one of those regulations might legitimately address a specific problem. Because we live in a complex system, we can’t predict the ways in which tying a city’s hands could have perverse outcomes.
This puts me in an odd position. Zoning and “suburbs” have now become a national political issue with some conservatives (including President Trump) railing against a supposed anti-suburban agenda while cheering on the disastrous government policies that subsidize them into existence. Meanwhile Joe Biden’s plan for dealing with housing falls into the same solutions-giving traps as the statewide zoning reforms that prompted this series. National action relies on the same failed thinking that got us here. Remember, the history of urban reform that brought us subsidized single-family development, urban highways, and segregated neighborhoods was rooted in federal efforts to solve last century’s housing problems. How can both sides so accurately see the mote in the other’s eye while ignoring the beam in their own?
Statewide reforms ought to be focused on removing the distortions in the system caused by state action. Again, we can use induced demand as a prime example. When states and the federal government shovel money into major transportation projects, they affect the real estate market. When Strong Towns calls for #nonewroads, part of the rationale is that state and federal investments in highways create distortions in the system. Refusing to build new roads attacks the Growth Ponzi Scheme at its roots. Rather than legislating away harmful behaviors, not building new roads eliminates one of the fundamental prerequisites to the continued urban expansion that feeds the Ponzi scheme. But you won’t hear about this from state and federal decision makers.
How to Proceed
All of this raises a perfectly fair question: “If statewide zoning reform isn’t the preferred approach, what is?” I propose the following two-part heuristic to figure out whether a proposed statewide reform is “getting us to a system that produces a solution” or merely “giving a solution”.
Are we fixing a problem caused by some other government action?
Could that other action be changed or eliminated instead of proceeding with the current proposal?
If the answer to both of these questions is “yes”, we’re probably not attacking the problem at a systemic level.
This isn’t a call to reject efforts that fail this test (even statewide zoning reform, which I would ultimately support were I a member of a state legislature). It’s a recognition that such efforts are destined for mediocrity.
If we have to choose between the current system with statewide zoning reform and the current system without it, zoning reform is a decent course of action. It is this thinking that leads me to be supportive of Oregon’s statewide zoning changes despite failing to “get us to a system that produces a solution”. But let’s be clear that statewide zoning reform doesn’t address the systemic issues that Strong Towns identifies. That’s the core of my concern with statewide action.
In the two articles that follow this, we will explore two examples where state-level reform may be beneficial and consider suggestions for change that address harmful distortions in city policy while respecting the complexity of the system we operate in.
Read all of Spencer Gardner’s series on state-level reform:
Part One: When should the state jump in to address local problems?
Part Two: The Annexation Lottery
Part Three: Land Use and Services: A More Perfect Union
Top photo by CDMA via Unsplash
Americans need housing relief imminently. Despite what you may have heard, upzoning isn’t likely to be the thing that delivers that—but here's why it’s still worth pursuing.