Exclusionary zoning is the use of zoning ordinances to exclude certain types of land uses from a given community, especially to regulate racial and economic diversity. [1] In the United States, exclusionary zoning ordinances are standard in almost all communities. Exclusionary zoning was introduced in the early 1900s, typically to prevent racial and ethnic minorities from moving into middle- and upper-class neighborhoods. Municipalities use zoning to limit population density, such as by prohibiting multi-family residential dwellings or setting minimum lot size requirements. These ordinances raise costs, making it less likely that lower-income groups will move in. Development fees for variance (land use), a building permit, a certificate of occupancy, a filing (legal) cost, special permits and planned-unit development applications for new housing also raise prices to levels inaccessible for lower income people. [2]
Exclusionary land-use policies exacerbate social segregation by deterring any racial and economic integration, decrease the total housing supply of a region and raise housing prices. As well, regions with much economic segregation channel lower income students into lower performing schools thereby prompting educational achievement differences. A comprehensive survey in 2008 found that over 80% of United States jurisdictions imposed minimum lot size requirements of some kind on their inhabitants. [3] These ordinances continue to reinforce discriminatory housing practices throughout the United States. [4] [5] : 52–53
Around the turn of the 20th century, rapid immigration and urbanization in the United States transformed the country. Middle and upper-class citizens encounter greater diversity than they had before and many cities began implementing the first exclusionary zoning policies. In 1908, Los Angeles adopted the first citywide zoning ordinance to protect residential areas from industrial nuisances. However, the noted urban planner Yale Rabin observed, "What began as a means of improving the blighted physical environment in which people lived and worked" became "a mechanism for protecting property values and excluding the undesirables." In 1910, Baltimore enacted the first racial zoning ordinance, and the practice spread quickly. [6] Many early regulations directly barred racial and ethnic minorities from community residence until explicit racial zoning was declared unconstitutional in 1917. [7] : 6&25 Less explicitly ethnic but still exclusionary ordinances continued to gain popularity throughout the country. [5] : 48–49 Despite resistance from excluded peoples and activists, these ordinances are still used extensively across the country.
The increased use of exclusionary zoning finally caused the United States Department of Commerce to address the issue with the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act in 1922. The legislation established the institutional framework for zoning ordinances and delegated land-use power to local authorities for the conservation of community welfare and provided guidelines for appropriate regulation usage. [8] In light of those developments, the Supreme Court considered zoning's constitutionality in the 1926 landmark case of Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. The Court ultimately condoned zoning as an acceptable means of community regulation. After the decision, the number of municipalities with zoning legislation multiplied, from 368 in 1925 to over 1,000 in 1930. [9]
After the end of World War II and the country's subsequent suburbanization process, exclusionary zoning policies experienced an uptick in complexity, stringency and prevalence as suburbanites attempted to more effectively protect their new communities. Many people fled the cities and their unwanted elements as they searched for their suburban utopia. They feared that left unchecked, the very city elements that they had escaped would follow them into the suburbs. Thus, middle-class and affluent whites, who constituted the majority of suburban inhabitants, more frequently employed measures preventing immigrant and minority integration. [8] As a result of resident's newly-found protectionism, the number of jurisdictions with such ordinances increased to over 5,200 by 1968. [9]
Well-off whites mainly inhabited the suburbs, but the remaining city residents, primarily impoverished minorities, faced substantial obstacles to wealth. Many attributed their impecunious state to their exclusion from the suburbs. In response, a flurry of exclusionary zoning cases were brought before the Supreme Court in the 1970s that would ultimately determine the tactic's fate. The Supreme Court nearly always sided with the proponents of exclusionary zoning, which virtually halted any zoning reform movement. The ability of minorities and other excluded populations to challenge exclusionary zoning became essentially nonexistent and has allowed the policy's unabated continuation. [10]
American courts have historically most greatly valued individual property rights. However, more recently, concern for the general community welfare has begun taking precedence thus exculpating most exclusionary zoning measures. [8] Communities are granted freedom to enact policies in accordance with community welfare goals even in the case that they infringe upon a specific individual's property rights. Courts also have regularly ruled as if municipal regulatory power emanated from their role as agents for local families rather than for the government. Regulation was equated with some manner of 'market force' rather than 'state force' thereby allowing the policies to bypass many questions of justification required for state policy enactment. [11] : 97 For example, they did not have to prove that their policies benefited the well-being of society at large. Rather, they could merely enact regulations on the sole basis that it was their prerogative as an agent of the market regardless of any adverse effects on others. Therefore, exclusionary mechanisms were allowed to endure as complaints about the negative effects on the excluded population ultimately became null and irrelevant.
Buchanan v. Warley 1917: A Louisville city ordinance prohibiting the sale of property in majority-white neighborhoods to black people was brought to court. It was ultimately declared that such racial restriction was unconstitutional and a breach of individuals' freedom of contract. [7] : 6
Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. 1926: The Ambler Realty company accused the Village of Euclid of depriving their liberty with its ban on industrial uses. The ban on industry reduced the company's land value from $10,000 down to $2,500 per acre and undermined the company's right to govern its own property. [8] Court officials, however, sided with the village and upheld the ordinance on the basis that it was a just and reasonable delegation of the state's police power. Municipals, the court ruled, are entitled to regulate community property when it reflects the best interests of its constituents. This landmark decision would lay the constitutional foundation for all future exclusionary zoning policies. [11] : 89–91
Belle Terre et al. v. Boras et al. 1974: A group of six unrelated college students living together challenged a neighborhood ordinance that restricted unit residence to no more than two unrelated individuals. The case differed from the Euclid one in that there was no residential land use or structural type at issue. It rather addressed the constitutionality of directly regulating occupancy. Eventually, the court sanctioned this variety of ordinances. A community's pursuit of homogeneity was self-justifying, the court logic went, so long as there is no explicit class or racial discrimination. Their decision hinged on the view that an area's definition of the family is acceptable as long as a rational basis exists for the determination. It is not a judge's domain to overrule such legislative decisions. [11] : 96–97 Implicit within the case's ruling is permission for exclusionary zoning regulations to attempt preservation of identity in the context of family compositions. Thus, given the previous Village of Euclid decision, municipalities were now granted the right to legislate both external property and internal inhabitant characteristics.
Warth v. Seldin 1975: Low-income individuals and a not-for-profit housing organization sued a New York State suburb contending that the community's exclusionary principles increased their housing costs. The court ultimately asserted that any harm is a generalized consequence of real estate economics rather than a specific result of the suburb's regulations. Therefore, since the elevated housing costs could not be directly attributed to a certain exclusionary policy, the court ruled in favor of the suburb's ordinance. Specific legislation would not be held accountable for any overarching effects that it may have advanced. Therefore, exclusionary mechanisms could expand without threat of lawsuits from refused populations. [11] : 71
Municipalities will often impose density controls on developable land with the intention of limiting the number of individuals that will live in their particular area. This process denies neighborhood access to certain groups by limiting the supply of available housing units. Such concerns may manifest in measures prohibiting multi-family residential dwellings, limiting the number of people per unit of land and mandating lot size requirements. Most vacant land is particularly over-zoned in that it contains excess regulations impeding the construction of smaller, more affordable housing. In the New York City suburbs of Fairfield County, Connecticut, for instance, 89% of land is classified for residential zoning of over one acre. [7] : 10 This type of regulation ensures that housing developments are of adequately low density. Such ordinances can collectively raise costs anywhere from 2 to 250% depending on their extensiveness. [7] : 13–14 With such high costs, lower-income groups are effectively shut out of the community's housing market.
In some places such as Portland, Oregon, being in a historic district can make it difficult to demolish buildings or construct new ones; designation can be sought over owners' wishes to prevent increased housing supply in a neighborhood even if individual structures not historic. [12]
Another means by which exclusionary zoning and related ordinances contribute to the exclusion certain groups is through direct cost impositions on community residents. In the 1970s, municipalities established measures decreeing developers greater responsibility in the provision and maintenance of many basic neighborhood resources such as schools, parks, and other related services. [7] : 12 Developers incur excess costs for these aforementioned obligations which are then passed on to consumers in the form of fees or a financial bond. For instance, many newer developments charge monthly recreational fees to fund community facilities. Also, restrictive zoning regulations have made the approval process for development more arduous and extensive. The increased bureaucracy and red tape has meant that developers now encounter a myriad of fees for variance (land use), a building permit, a certificate of occupancy, a filing (legal) cost, special permits and planned-unit development applications. [7] : 13 Not only do the fees diminish builder profits, but they also lengthen the development process which further drains company resources. Just as with the community resource requirements, these extra costs are inevitably delivered to housing purchasers. All of these fees accumulate and escalate unit prices to levels inaccessible for lower income people.
The valuation of the unit may experience a decline. According to one paywall study from 2004 by Robert Cervero and Michael Duncan, specific to Santa Clara County, California, increased property values and tax proceeds have resulted from racist and classist exclusionary practices. [13] Surmised from one 1993 paywall study by William Bogart, in order to augment their own monetary assets, upper-class individuals enact regulations prohibiting neighborhood accessibility for specific groups. [14]
Exclusionary zoning's assurance of lower densities precludes some potential deleterious consequences associated with increased population density. More people in a community can result in more traffic congestion, which may interfere with the original inhabitants' quality of life. Greater populations may lead to strains on potentially limited or vulnerable environmental resources such as water or air, if the urban form is designed in an automobile-dependent way. [14]
Some suburbanites also champion exclusionary zoning policies on the simple motivation of excluding unalike groups irrespective of any negative effects that they may impose. Some researchers partly attribute the policies to class or racial prejudice as individuals often prefer to live in homogeneous communities of people similar to themselves. [15] Others assert that race is merely a proxy and that upper classes and whites stereotype overall neighborhoods containing certain groups rather than the individual group members specifically. Such areas are stigmatized for their perceived correlation with high crime, low-quality schooling and low property values. [16] Additionally, the entrance of heterogenous residents could have severe political ramifications. If enough lower-income individuals, who typically differ in political ideology, move into the community, then they may garner enough political power to overshadow the traditional contingent. As such, the original constituency is politically subjugated in the very community in which they used to enjoy power. [14] Thus, whites and upper classes divert those groups for their unsuitable characteristics, perceived link with negative neighborhood qualities and threat to community politics.
Exclusionary zoning initiatives reduce the presence of both rental housing and ethnic minorities in an affected community. [17] Despite federal court mandates prohibiting blatant racial and economic discrimination, many of these less fortunate groups have encountered systematic obstacles preventing access to higher-income areas. Studies have demonstrated that higher-income and predominately-white jurisdictions generally adopt more restrictive land-use regulations. [15] As a result, minority and lower-income groups are essentially locked into rigidly segregated neighborhoods. Residential segregation has remained constant from the 1960s to 1990s in spite of civil rights progress, primarily because of hindering policies that relegate certain groups to less-regulated areas. [10] : 47 Accordingly, the prevalence of exclusionary land-use policies exacerbates social segregation by deterring any racial and economic integration.
Restrictive from the standpoint of economic efficiency, regulations that limit density also decrease the total housing supply of a region. With the lowered housing stock, market demand for the units is amplified thus raising prices. Along with reduced overall supply, the insistence on detached single-family homes also increases individual housing costs as homeowners must individually account for many land improvements (such as sidewalks, streets, water and sewer lines) that otherwise could be shared among more inhabitants as in denser communities. Studies in Maryland and the District of Columbia find that higher densities cut per capita water and sewer installation costs by 50% and road installation/maintenance by 67%. [7] : 6 Moreover, residential developers and homeowners must implement expensive housing features to comply with jurisdictional zoning mandates. For instance, setback (land use) requirements that are commonly used throughout the United States increase total unit costs by 6.1 to 7.8%. [18]
All land-use factors contribute to mounting housing unit prices in comparison to less regulated communities. The communities specifically administering restrictive ordinances experience higher housing costs, like neighboring areas. Exclusionary zoning affects the overall regional housing market by reducing the total supply of units. As there are less available units, the demand for the units will rise causing more expensive housing across the area. Ultimately, the additional competition and resulting costs accumulate making regional markets with strictly regulated housing have 17% higher rents and 51% higher housing prices than do leniently governed areas. [19] Therefore, housing regulations evidently have significant impacts on both the specific community and overall region's housing expenditure.
Education has been proven to be vitally important to human welfare, as it can promote higher incomes, greater labor market performance, a higher social status, increased societal participation and improved health. [20] : 2 Along with individual benefits, educational attainment in the United States also has the ability to foster greater regional and national economic prosperity as an educated populace can better adapt to global economic trends and conditions. Nevertheless, there is a stark education inequality between various groups as the average low-income student attends a school that scores on the 42nd percentile on state exams while the average middle and upper-income student attends a school that scores on the 61st percentile on state exams. [20] : 8 The vast differences in attainment cannot be accounted for by assuming inheritable group differences, as empirical research has demonstrated that simple genetic contrasts are insufficient to explain education disparities. [21] Rather, environmental factors involving school quality also contribute to educational achievement.
Regions with much economic segregation, which, as noted earlier, partially stems from exclusionary zoning, also have the largest gaps in test scores between the low-income and other students. [20] : 10 Low-income students are trapped in inadequate schooling since their economic conditions limit access of high-performing schools and education. Across the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, costs of housing is 2.4 times higher for units zoned to higher-performing public schools than to those zoned to lower-performing ones. [20] : 14 Therefore, exclusionary zoning serves to channel lower income students into lower performing schools thereby prompting educational achievement differences.
Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term "smart growth" is particularly used in North America. In Europe and particularly the UK, the terms "compact city", "urban densification" or "urban intensification" have often been used to describe similar concepts, which have influenced government planning policies in the UK, the Netherlands and several other European countries.
In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a single use, they may combine several compatible activities by use, or in the case of form-based zoning, the differing regulations may govern the density, size and shape of allowed buildings whatever their use. The planning rules for each zone determine whether planning permission for a given development may be granted. Zoning may specify a variety of outright and conditional uses of land. It may indicate the size and dimensions of lots that land may be subdivided into, or the form and scale of buildings. These guidelines are set in order to guide urban growth and development.
Inclusionary zoning (IZ) is municipal and county planning ordinances that require or provide incentives when a given percentage of units in a new housing development be affordable by people with low to moderate incomes. Such housing is known as inclusionary housing. The term inclusionary zoning indicates that these ordinances seek to counter exclusionary zoning practices, which exclude low-cost housing from a municipality through the zoning code. Non-profit affordable housing developers build 100% of their units as affordable, but need significant taxpayer subsidies for this model to work. Inclusionary zoning allows municipalities to have new affordable housing constructed without taxpayer subsidies. In order to encourage for-profit developers to build projects that include affordable units, cities often allow developers to build more total units than their zoning laws currently allow so that there will be enough profit generating market-rate units to offset the losses from the below market-rate units and still allow the project to be financially feasible. Inclusionary zoning can be mandatory or voluntary, though the great majority of units have been built as a result of mandatory programmes. There are variations among the set-aside requirements, affordability levels, and length of time the unit is deed-restricted as affordable housing.
Geographical segregation exists whenever the proportions of population rates of two or more populations are not homogeneous throughout a defined space. Populations can be considered any plant or animal species, human genders, followers of a certain religion, people of different nationalities, ethnic groups, etc.
A planned unit development (PUD) is a type of flexible, non-Euclidean zoning device that redefines the land uses allowed within a stated land area. PUDs consist of unitary site plans that promote the creation of open spaces, mixed-use housing and land uses, environmental preservation and sustainability, and development flexibility. Areas rezoned as PUDs include building developments, designed groupings of both varied and compatible land uses—such as housing, recreation, commercial centers, and industrial parks—within one contained development or subdivision. Developed areas vary in size and by zoned uses, such as industrial, commercial, and residential. Other types of similar zoning devices include floating zones, overlay zones, special district zoning, performance-based codes, and transferable development rights.
Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median, as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and a number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency homeless shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental, to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership. Demand for affordable housing is generally associated with a decrease in housing affordability, such as rent increases, in addition to increased homelessness.
Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp, 429 U.S. 252 (1977), was a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States dealing with a zoning ordinance that in a practical way barred families of various socio-economic, and ethno-racial backgrounds from residing in a neighborhood. The Court held that the ordinance was constitutional because there was no proof that "discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor in the Village's decision."
Medium-density housing is a term used within urban planning and academic literature to refer to a category of residential development that falls between detached suburban housing and large multi-story buildings. There is no singular definition of medium-density housing as its precise definition tends to vary between jurisdiction. Scholars however, have found that medium density housing ranges from about 25 to 80 dwellings per hectare, although most commonly sits around 30 and 40 dwellings/hectare. Typical examples of medium-density housing include duplexes, triplexes, townhouses, row homes, detached homes with garden suites, and walk-up apartment buildings.
Income segregation is the separation of various classes of people based on their income. For example, certain people cannot get into country clubs because of insufficient funds. Another example of income segregation in a neighborhood would be the schools, facilities and the characteristics of a population. Income segregation can be illustrated in countries such as the United States, where racial segregation is a major cause of income inequality.
Zoning is a law that divides a jurisdiction's land into districts, or zones, and limits how land in each district can be used. 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.
Residential segregation is the physical separation of two or more groups into different neighborhoods—a form of segregation that "sorts population groups into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment at the neighborhood level". While it has traditionally been associated with racial segregation, it generally refers to the separation of populations based on some criteria.
In the United States, housing segregation is the practice of denying African Americans and other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of realty and financing services, and racial steering. Housing policy in the United States has influenced housing segregation trends throughout history. Key legislation include the National Housing Act of 1934, the G.I. Bill, and the Fair Housing Act. Factors such as socioeconomic status, spatial assimilation, and immigration contribute to perpetuating housing segregation. The effects of housing segregation include relocation, unequal living standards, and poverty. However, there have been initiatives to combat housing segregation, such as the Section 8 housing program.
In the United States, subsidized housing is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents. In most federally-funded rental assistance programs, the tenants' monthly rent is set at 30% of their household income. Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2020, there were one million public housing units. In 2022, about 5.2 million American households received some form of federal rental assistance.
Housing inequality is a disparity in the quality of housing in a society which is a form of economic inequality. The right to housing is recognized by many national constitutions, and the lack of adequate housing can have adverse consequences for an individual or a family. The term may apply regionally, temporally or culturally. Housing inequality is directly related to racial, social, income and wealth inequality. It is often the result of market forces, discrimination and segregation.
Housing discrimination in the United States refers to the historical and current barriers, policies, and biases that prevent equitable access to housing. Housing discrimination became more pronounced after the abolition of slavery in 1865, typically as part of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. The federal government didn't begin to take action against these laws until 1917, when the Supreme Court struck down ordinances prohibiting African-Americans from occupying or owning buildings in majority-white neighborhoods in Buchanan v. Warley. However, the federal government as well as local governments continued to be directly responsible for housing discrimination through redlining and race-restricted covenants until the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
The definition of mixed-income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Following Brophy and Smith, the following will discuss “non-organic” examples of mixed-income housing, meaning “a deliberate effort to construct and/or own a multifamily development that has the mixing of income groups as a fundamental part of its financial and operating plans” A new, constructed mixed-income housing development includes diverse types of housing units, such as apartments, town homes, and/or single-family homes for people with a range of income levels. Mixed-income housing may include housing that is priced based on the dominant housing market with only a few units priced for lower-income residents, or it may not include any market-rate units and be built exclusively for low- and moderate-income residents. Calculating Area Median Income (AMI) and pricing units at certain percentages of AMI most often determine the income mix of a mixed-income housing development. Mixed-income housing is one of two primary mechanisms to eliminate neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, combat residential segregation, and avoid the building of public housing that offers 100% of its housing units to those living in poverty. Mixed-income housing is built through federal-, state-, and local-level efforts and through a combination of public-private-non-profit partnerships.
Missing middle housing refers to a lack of medium-density housing in the North American context. The term describes an urban planning phenomenon in Canada, the United States, Australia and more recent developments in industrialized and newly industrializing countries due to zoning regulations favoring social and racial separation and car-dependent suburban sprawl.
Ghettos in the United States are typically urban neighborhoods perceived as being high in crime and poverty. The origins of these areas are specific to the United States and its laws, which created ghettos through both legislation and private efforts to segregate America for political, economic, social, and ideological reasons: de jure and de facto segregation. De facto segregation continues today in ways such as residential segregation and school segregation because of contemporary behavior and the historical legacy of de jure segregation.
Single-family zoning is a type of planning restriction applied to certain residential zones in the United States and Canada in order to restrict development to only allow single-family detached homes. It disallows townhomes, duplexes, and multifamily housing (apartments) from being built on any plot of land with this zoning designation.
The term "affordable housing" refers to housing that is considered economically accessible for individuals and families whose household income falls at or below the Area Median Income (AMI), as evaluated by either national or local government authorities through an officially recognized housing affordability index. However, in the US, the term is mostly used to refer to housing units that are deed restricted to households considered Low-Income, Very Low-Income, and Extremely Low-Income. These units are most often constructed by non-profit "affordable housing developers" who use a combination of private money and government subsidies. For-profit developers, when building market-rate developments, may include some "affordable" units, if required as part of a city's inclusionary zoning mandate.