Midwestern-oriented blog The Urbanophile has a great post up titled Planning and Free Market Density, laying out the basics for why the so-called “Libertarians” in the planning world are actually the most pro-interventionist camp among us:

Virtually every piece of planning regulation I see acts to discourage urbanization and especially to reduce densities below market demand. The free market wants more density.

I read articles out on the net with the general theme of claiming that a cabal of planners is conspiring to force us all to move back into overcrowded tenements in order to recognize their dream of reurbanizing America… The practical reality in most of the United States is exactly the opposite situation. Virtually every piece of planning regulation I see acts to discourage urbanization and especially to reduce densities below market demand.

If you want people to live more densely, no nefarious planning rules are necessary. In fact, simply remove a lot of the ones we have and American cities would get much more dense in a hurry. The free market wants more density.

If you look at zoning laws across America, almost all of them specify maximum densities, such as residential units per dwelling acre, that put a cap on buildout. Additionally, there are a host of other planning regulations such as minimum parking requirements, setback requirements, etc. that have the same effect.

The truth of this proposition can easily be verified by simply showing up at your nearest neighborhood meeting or planning hearing when ever a new development is proposed. Almost inevitably, the developer wants to put in a certain number of units, and the neighbors think it is too many. Frequently, developers are forced to scale back their projects in the face of objections…

Developers are in business to make money. They obviously have some reason to believe that the market will absorb more density and less parking. They certainly aren’t proposing things out of any purely altruistic motives… There is no doubt in my mind we would frequently see greater density if we only allowed the market to operate. No heavy handed planning required.

This follows a report posted on Streetsblog yesterday that the federal government subsidizes parking six times more than transit, just the latest in a seemingly never-ending string of subsidies that all but force Americans to live their lives behind the wheel.