Except regulations are what got us here in the first place? At least in the US, zoning is a recent invention with racial motivations. Cities want to be dense because that is the cheapest way to build. That is why basically every city older than a 100 years old that hasn't been wrecked by zoning is dense. Suburbs are an unnatural product of abundant land in the US, the invention of automobiles, and zoning.

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Legend2440 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

...that's a pretty disingenuous take on zoning, which has many other motives beyond racism.

For example zoning keeps industry away from residential, preventing disasters like the West Texas Fertilizer explosion.

	▲	actionfromafar an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Must we have extremes? I could live near ”no explosives” zoning, while still allowing at lot more than is typical today.

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cyberax an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Zoning is about 100 years old, and it's not the reason Manhattan doesn't have enough groceries. And ultimately, market forces almost always win over regulations.

Reformulate the question: why do people tolerate living in dense tiny apartments, without easy access to necessities like childcare and grocery stores?

	▲	chongli 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You don't need tiny apartments to have density. You can do it with smaller single-family houses on smaller lots, narrow one-way streets, and alleyways for parking instead of driveways and garages. This is how the pre-war streetcar suburb of Riverdale, Toronto is designed [1] and it has much higher density than the rest of the city. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0