Zoning in the United States

Unsightly wires were among the targets of late nineteenth century agitation for zoning.

Zoning is a law that divides a jurisdiction's land into districts, or zones, and limits how land in each district can be used.[1][2] In the United States, zoning includes various land use laws enforced through the police power rights of state governments and local governments to exercise authority over privately owned real property.[3]

Zoning laws in major cities originated with the Los Angeles zoning ordinances of 1904[4][5] and the New York City 1916 Zoning Resolution.[6] Early zoning regulations were in some cases motivated by racism and classism, particularly with regard to those mandating single-family housing.[7][8] Zoning ordinances did not allow African-Americans moving into or using residences that were occupied by majority whites due to the fact that their presence would decrease the value of home.[9] The constitutionality of zoning ordinances was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. in 1926.

According to the New York Times, "single-family zoning is practically gospel in America," as a vast number of cities zone land extensively for detached single-family homes.[10] Low-density residential zoning is far more predominating in U.S. cities than in other countries.[7] The housing shortage in many metropolitan areas, coupled with racial residential segregation, has led to increased public focus and political debates on zoning laws.[11][12] Studies indicate that strict zoning regulations constrain the supply of housing and inflate housing prices,[13][14][15][16][excessive citations] and increase homelessness,[17] as well as contribute to inequality[18] and a weaker economy.[19][13][20][21][excessive citations]

Strict zoning laws have been found to contribute to racial housing segregation in the United States,[13][22][23][24][excessive citations] and zoning laws that prioritize single-family housing have raised concerns regarding housing availability, housing affordability and environmental harms.[10][25][26] In the U.S., support for local zoning against multifamily housing is concentrated among white, affluent homeowners.[27] There are no substantial differences between liberal and conservative homeowners in their opposition to the construction of dense housing in their neighborhoods.[28] However, among the mass public and elected officials, Democrats are more likely to support dense, multi-family housing.[29]

Zoning in the United States is expected to cost hundreds of billions or over a trillion per year in lost economic output.[30][31]

  1. ^ "zoning". LII / Legal Information Institute. Retrieved 2023-12-29.
  2. ^ Hirt, Sonia A. (2014). Zoned in the USA: The Origins and Implications of American Land-Use Regulation. Cornell University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-8014-5305-2. OCLC 879527609.
  3. ^ Elliott Sclar; Bernadette Baird-Zars; Lauren Ames Fischer; Valerie E. Stahl, eds. (2020). Zoning : a guide for 21st-century planning. New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-48922-8. OCLC 1124778006.
  4. ^ Kolnick, Kathy A. (2008). Order before zoning : land use regulation in Los Angeles, 1880-1915. OCLC 309352342.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Dunlop, David W. (25 July 2016). "Zoning Arrived 100 Years Ago. It Changed New York City Forever". New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  7. ^ a b Lens, Michael C. (2022). "Zoning, Land Use, and the Reproduction of Urban Inequality". Annual Review of Sociology. 48 (1): 421–439. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-030420-122027. PMC 10691857. PMID 38045490.
  8. ^ Flores, Luis (2024). "Zoning as a labor market regulation". Theory and Society. 53 (2): 357–394. doi:10.1007/s11186-023-09539-y. ISSN 1573-7853.
  9. ^ Shertzer, Allison; Twinam, Tate; Walsh, Randall (2022). "Zoning and Segregation in Urban Economic History". Regional Science and Urban Economics. 94: 103652. doi:10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2021.103652. S2CID 241887690. Alt URL
  10. ^ a b Badger, Emily; Bui, Quoctrung (2019-06-18). "Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House With a Yard on Every Lot". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2020-08-03. Retrieved 2020-08-03.
  11. ^ Dougherty, Conor. Golden gates: fighting for housing in America. ISBN 978-0-593-16532-4. OCLC 1161988433.
  12. ^ Einstein, Katherine Levine (2019). Neighborhood defenders : participatory politics and America's housing crisis. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-76949-5. OCLC 1135562802.
  13. ^ a b c Brouwer, N. R.; Trounstine, Jessica (2024). "NIMBYs, YIMBYs, and the Politics of Land Use in American Cities". Annual Review of Political Science. 27 (1): 165–184. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-041322-041133. ISSN 1094-2939.
  14. ^ Glaeser, Edward; Gyourko, Joseph (2018). "The Economic Implications of Housing Supply". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 32 (1): 3–30. doi:10.1257/jep.32.1.3. ISSN 0895-3309. S2CID 158965378.
  15. ^ Glaeser, Edward L.; Gyourko, Joseph; Saks, Raven (2005). "Why Is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in Housing Prices". The Journal of Law and Economics. 48 (2): 331–369. doi:10.1086/429979. ISSN 0022-2186. S2CID 222330705. Archived from the original on 2021-01-29. Retrieved 2021-02-28.
  16. ^ Baum-Snow, Nathaniel (2023). "Constraints on City and Neighborhood Growth: The Central Role of Housing Supply". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 37 (2): 53–74. doi:10.1257/jep.37.2.53. ISSN 0895-3309.
  17. ^ Dawkins, Casey J. (2023). "Homelessness and housing supply". Journal of Urban Affairs: 1–19. doi:10.1080/07352166.2023.2168553. ISSN 0735-2166. S2CID 256890658.
  18. ^ Trounstine, Jessica (2021), Hertel-Fernandez, Alexander; Hacker, Jacob S.; Thelen, Kathleen; Pierson, Paul (eds.), "The Production of Local Inequality: Race, Class, and Land Use in American Cities", The American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power, Cambridge University Press, pp. 158–180, ISBN 978-1-316-51636-2
  19. ^ Hsieh, Chang-Tai; Moretti, Enrico (2019). "Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation". American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. 11 (2): 1–39. doi:10.1257/mac.20170388. ISSN 1945-7707.
  20. ^ Parkhomenko, Andrii (2023). "Local causes and aggregate implications of land use regulation". Journal of Urban Economics. 138: 103605. doi:10.1016/j.jue.2023.103605. ISSN 0094-1190.
  21. ^ Dougherty, Conor (2016-07-04). "How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-06-07.
  22. ^ Trounstine, Jessica (2020). "The Geography of Inequality: How Land Use Regulation Produces Segregation". American Political Science Review. 114 (2): 443–455. doi:10.1017/S0003055419000844. ISSN 0003-0554.
  23. ^ Trounstine, Jessica (2018). Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108555722. ISBN 978-1-108-55572-2. S2CID 158682691. Archived from the original on 2020-08-31. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
  24. ^ Shertzer, Allison; Twinam, Tate; Walsh, Randall P. (2021). "Zoning and segregation in urban economic history". Regional Science and Urban Economics. 94: 103652. doi:10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2021.103652. ISSN 0166-0462. S2CID 234156620.
  25. ^ "Whatever Happened to the Starter Home?". The New York Times. 2022-09-25. ISSN 0362-4331.
  26. ^ Manville, Michael; Monkkonen, Paavo; Lens, Michael (2020). "It's Time to End Single-Family Zoning". Journal of the American Planning Association. 86 (1): 106–112. doi:10.1080/01944363.2019.1651216. ISSN 0194-4363.
  27. ^ Manville, Michael; Monkkonen, Paavo (2021). "Unwanted Housing: Localism and Politics of Housing Development". Journal of Planning Education and Research. 44 (2): 685–700. doi:10.1177/0739456X21997903. ISSN 0739-456X.
  28. ^ Nall, Clayton; Marble, William (2021). "Where Self-Interest Trumps Ideology: Liberal Homeowners and Local Opposition to Housing Development". The Journal of Politics. 83 (4): 000. doi:10.1086/711717. ISSN 0022-3816. S2CID 225013704. Archived from the original on 2021-03-21. Retrieved 2020-10-04.
  29. ^ de Benedictis-Kessner, Justin; Jones, Daniel; Warshaw, Christopher (2024). "How partisanship in cities influences housing policy". American Journal of Political Science. doi:10.1111/ajps.12856. ISSN 0092-5853.
  30. ^ Hsieh, Chang-Tai; Moretti, Enrico (2019). "Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation". American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. 11 (2): 1–39. doi:10.1257/mac.20170388. ISSN 1945-7707.
  31. ^ Babalievsky, Fil; Herkenhoff, Kyle F.; Ohanian, Lee E.; Prescott, Edward C. (November 2023), The Impact of Commercial Real Estate Regulations on U.S. Output (Working Paper), Working Paper Series, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, doi:10.3386/w31895, retrieved 2024-03-15