Yes, I'm aware of and generally sympathetic to the free-riding arguments (Elizabeth Warren is one of my State Senators who I'm happy to vote for).

Yet this "analysis" is not even close to valid or realistic; it is circular, self-proving, a tautology, not disprovable.

"Location, location, location" is indeed the standard real estate mantra, but acting as if location is created by entirely extrinsic factors, and a town (the unit which creates zoning) has little or nothing to do with creating value, is preposterous.

There are plenty of towns that have highly comparable locations (same commute distances to metro areas, shopping, etc.), yet vastly different desirability and valuations. And of course, they live under the same state and country-level services. The difference is the approach to managing the town.

In that regard, zoning is not unidirectional. In the town I live, zoning is 2-acre minimum, and there area active programs to maintain and purchase open space to preserve. Yet tax rates are higher and values are lower than a neighboring town that has smaller zoning and more development. As I said, I could retire if I could re-develop my land and replace my house with a 6-unit condo. But instead, I need to spend $thousands just for permission to move the front walk stairs, and I can also watch ducks and geese use the wetlands that take up half my yard in their spring and fall migrations.

It is creating different values, and it does cost real money.

And the argument that zoning laws exist only to free-ride value is nonsense. I've lived in a town that had zoning in place, then repealed zoning when developers convinced the old-time farmers to vote with"your grandfather never needed to get a permit to build a barn, why should you?"-type arguments. Then a few years later, the town saw what developers and "entrepreneurs" were doing, and reinstated zoning after the bad behavior. And this was after "private investment" created more units that reduced individual tax burdens by spreading it over more housing units. Also, this was 150km from any coast or major city, so zero commuting going on, etc.

The country argument is pretty much the same as the town argument. Some countries invest more, and are more desirable. Yet, that does not give me the right to go live there just because I want to. And the simple fact is, that if everyone did do that, it would literally destroy what they came for, like a horde of locusts. The only way to preserve it is to preserve it.

>>If you care about the ecosystem, then you should want more zoning density, because suburban sprawl is what destroys ecosystems, not pockets of density which allow for maximum land to be open green space.

Yes, agree. I've also lived in apartments in small towns and walk-up railroad flat in Manhattan. As far as I'm concerned, once you no longer have a yard that's yours, it doesn't matter much if it's a 6-unit building or a square kilometer 500m tall city-in-a-box. So, generally, I agree that it would be best to have very-high-density cities, and very low density exurbs.

The problem is that everything is done incrementally. The push is inexorably to higher-density zoning, and further out from the city centers. The result is simply more destructive sprawl.

So, how do we get planning and funding enabling entire square kilometers of city space to be razed and rebuilt as even higher-density urban superstructures?