Freedumb In Houston!!!
So we all know that freedom consists in businesses and their rich owners being able to do whatever they damned please, right? And we have a classic example of how freedom helps the people of Texas live the good life that their Conservative overlords have promised them, in return for not caring about pollution, global warming and all those other meaningless obsessions of those dumb libruls.
Today's example comes in the form of the city of Houston, the largest city in the nation that has no zoning regulations, because who has a right to tell someone what they can do with their own money, on their own land, amirite?
And what does zoning have to do with the recent floods that have a good part of Houston under water? Well, a couple of things. First of all, zoning regulations in sane cities require that when an area is developed it has sufficient roads in and out of it so people can get out in an emergency. No need for that kind of evil Government tyranny in Texas! So, we have the freeways, which are mostly built below ground level, looking like this:
and no ability to call for an evacuation, because literally hundreds of thousand of people could be caught in massive traffic jams on these roads and drown.
Another insignificant feature of zoning regulations is a restriction on the percentage of any lot that can be covered with impermeable surfaces, preventing the land from absorbing rainfall. Another useless example of Government over-regulation, I guess, until it rains a lot.
I just want to point out that this strategy saved the people of Texas billions of dollars in construction costs, so good for them. Of course, now, the people of the rest of the country (by which of course I mean primarily the blue States, which are the only ones who make enough to support themselves, let alone anyone else) will have to cough up billions themselves, to put Texas back together again. Freedumb! It's a wonderful thing.
Today's example comes in the form of the city of Houston, the largest city in the nation that has no zoning regulations, because who has a right to tell someone what they can do with their own money, on their own land, amirite?
And what does zoning have to do with the recent floods that have a good part of Houston under water? Well, a couple of things. First of all, zoning regulations in sane cities require that when an area is developed it has sufficient roads in and out of it so people can get out in an emergency. No need for that kind of evil Government tyranny in Texas! So, we have the freeways, which are mostly built below ground level, looking like this:
Another insignificant feature of zoning regulations is a restriction on the percentage of any lot that can be covered with impermeable surfaces, preventing the land from absorbing rainfall. Another useless example of Government over-regulation, I guess, until it rains a lot.
I just want to point out that this strategy saved the people of Texas billions of dollars in construction costs, so good for them. Of course, now, the people of the rest of the country (by which of course I mean primarily the blue States, which are the only ones who make enough to support themselves, let alone anyone else) will have to cough up billions themselves, to put Texas back together again. Freedumb! It's a wonderful thing.
Comments
Widening freeways just encourages more traffic, leading to more sprawl and more traffic jams. [Source.] Therefore, it's impossible to build enough roads to accommodate traffic. Due to the sprawl encouraged by these roads, Houston also has 30 parking spaces for every car - that's a lot of land paved over.
Better to cut down on sprawl and rely on public transportation - those buses can be used to evacuate people more effectively. Unfortunately, that's not what Texas governments encourage.