By Gabriella Velasco and Oriya Cohen, Photo: ostreetphotography/Shutterstock, Housing Matters, March 2, 2022
Zoning reform is not sexy. It’s a complicated process deeply entangled in bureaucratic decisionmaking that often stifles public participation. But zoning profoundly shapes our communities: it is the local regulatory tool that helps dictate where housing, schools, and parks are located; who can access them; and how they’re built.
In the United States, zoning codes played a central role in producing the place-based inequality characteristic of many American cities. Racist and classist zoning decisions locked in patterns of segregation and neighborhood disinvestment that created inequitable access to economic opportunity and disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards for households with low incomes and households of color.
Today, zoning that restricts construction to single-family homes continues to reinforce these patterns, limiting upward mobility, driving up housing costs, and forcing the development of new affordable housing into areas farther from quality jobs and education. Because of the disparate effects of climate change, such housing is also increasingly vulnerable to fires, floods, and other climate-related hazards.
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