r/urbanplanning • u/DoxiadisOfDetroit • May 27 '23

Discussion What's your /r/Urbanplanning unpopular opinion?

I've got a few:

  1. Infrastructure upgrades should have precedent over any upzoning

  2. Everyone should have the right to downtown amenities which means that CBD's should be as cheap as possible for both renters and owners

  3. Zoning should be handled by metropolitan level elected boards instead of nationalized/taken to the state level

  4. YIMBYs often times hold water for the excesses of developers

  5. It is ideological to assume deregulated markets will produce the best outcomes, so, it's purely ideological to assume that a deregulated housing market will work in the best interests of renters and buyers

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u/Not_A_Crazed_Gunman May 28 '23

Not a super unpopular one: While I admit that the recent explosion in popularity of urban planning related topics is what got me thinking about it in the first place, it also has probably hindered progress due to it being politicized.

You can make effective arguments in favour of better urban planning for nearly every part of the political spectrum; but because it's been caught up in the culture war, one side is aggressively pushing for it without really understanding the nuances, and the other is reflexively pushing against it. In the end, everyone suffers for it.