This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, December 2nd, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Zoning has shaped American city since 1916 when New York City adopted the first comprehensive ordinance, what are the economic effects

of zoning both good and bad?

William Fisher is author of Zoning Rules, The Economics of Land Use Regulation regulation we spoke following a forum for the book in

October. What are most homeowners really concerned about when it comes to what goes on around them.

The thing that drives most homeowners is anxiety that something will change in the neighborhood

that will adversely affect the value of their house or the projected value of their house.

Now I hasten to add that most homeowners, especially at public meetings, don't want to talk

about money. They want to talk about things that

map into money like the quality of the schools, the amount of traffic, whether that's

crime, air pollution, all those things. But we economists know and indeed I think most homeowners

know that those things pretty clearly map into a dollar value so that's why I

think reducing it to the value is a useful shorthand.

Now you talk in the book speaking of that you talk about the Coast theorem and its potential

application as what a replacement for zoning or as a sort of a supplement to zoning?

I think of it as a rationalization of zoning so if you have a town that has a very large minimum lot sizes that are unreasonably so and

you can't develop anything.

The Kostian approach which says, well, if you have an inefficient outcome and there's two parties

who can bargain with one another, they should be able to make a deal.

The landowner or the developer or landowner should be able to ask the town,

what do you need to rezone this so I can get attractive houses or a commercial center going and smart landowners in fact

...