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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In many areas, it is illegal to tear down an existing single family home (or group of homes) and replace it with new townhomes or multifamily, to "preserve the neighborhood character"   However it is perfectly legal to tear down an existing home and replace it with a new and vastly larger home.   In areas with high land values, and demand for sq feet, this creates a massive bias towards lots of very large SFH's.   Since such homes also change the character of the neighborhood, it is essentially a loophole, and one might even argue a hidden subsidy for large new SFHs.

It is interesting how many people claim a free market ideology, but have no problem with the zoning laws that ban TH's and multifamily, even in places close to metro stations.    [/quote]

Exactly.

I also don't understand why people don't MYOB. If you want a new build, save your money and buy on. If you don't, dont. Stop trying to meddle in other families lives. [/quote]

Humans are social animals, and naturally vie for status.   Some people buy big things to get status.  Others with less money but with better education subvert that by expressing their tastes.    This has been going on since the time of the great gatsby, and is illuminated in the writings of Veblen.   [/quote]

Are you assuming that people will less money buy smaller things?  The people who buy big houses in our neighborhood are very well educated.  It may just be others with less money and less education trying to subvert status by trying to conflate "taste" and raw resentment. [/quote]

I do not believe that taste is being conflated with raw resentment.   But I do not wish to rehash to the aesthetic arguments, as I do not particularly care what you live in.   I do think that if there are many people with high incomes (some of whom may have good degrees, but no real sense of aesthetics) who find the entire discussion of aesthetics very threatening - and I think that is due to the way it subverts money as status. [/quote]

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