Arbitrary Lines by M. Nolan Gray

Author:M. Nolan Gray [Gray, M. Nolan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642832556
Publisher: Island Press

Why Reform Isn’t Enough

In light of the current political realities limiting the scope of debate, focusing on zoning reform makes sense. Until the metaphorical Overton window opens up—a shift this book aims to help along—it makes sense for activists and policymakers to focus their scarce resources on causes like reforming local codes or adopting thoughtful state preemptions. But merely reforming zoning cannot be the end goal. The forces that made zoning so awful in the first place won’t magically go away even if we succeed in scrapping single-family zoning or lowering minimum lot sizes. As long as zoning is still on the table, the very forces that made zoning so harmful in the first place will always pull it back toward the dysfunctional status quo. The only way to sustainably escape this trap is to abolish zoning.

As we discussed back in chapter 3, a zoning system that systematically inflates housing costs—particularly in high-opportunity regions—persists in part because it ultimately benefits a minority of affluent homeowners who call the shots in local elections. Short of dramatic changes in how we tax and finance housing in this country, American zoning will always trend toward excessive limitations on housing, with painful downstream consequences for housing affordability and economic growth.1 Extreme though it may seem to us today, zoning abolition is the least unlikely way of sustainably improving housing affordability.

Similarly deep-seated forces will undermine efforts to tame zoning’s role in perpetuating segregation and sprawl short of outright abolition. Consider the issue of who sets zoning policy: local government. Partly as a result of zoning, local governance in the US is unbelievably fragmented. In the Los Angeles metropolitan area alone, there are well over 350 municipalities. In some cases, these municipalities are just neighborhoods with the power to adopt zoning, with literal gates at the municipal boundaries and metaphorical gates in the zoning code. Many of these municipalities exist purely to adopt zoning as a way to exclude certain less privileged groups and artificially keep densities low, hoarding lavishly funded public services for affluent residents.

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