Dr. Jessica Trounstine: Zoning and land use reforms
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Many cities and states are in the process of considering, passing, or implementing changes to zoning and land-use regulations.
On March 14, 2024, SciLine interviewed: Dr. Jessica Trounstine, the Centennial Chair and professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. See the footage and transcript from the interview below, or select ‘Contents’ on the left to skip to specific questions.
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Introduction
[0:00:19]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: I am Jessica Trounstine. I am a Centennial Chair and a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. I study local politics in the United States with a specific focus on segregation and the provision of government services.
Interview with SciLine
What can you tell us about current housing shortages and high housing costs in the United States?
[0:00:42]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: Most metropolitan areas in the United States have seen housing shortages and skyrocketing prices, both for rentals and for mortgages over the last decade. And as those prices have gone up, tax assessments have also gone up. So, the total amount of money that residents are paying for their housing is higher than it used to be. When households pay more than 30% of their income toward housing, the Census calls those households “cost burdened.” And according to some recent data, more than a third of households in the United States are cost burdened, and the figures are even higher for renters than they are for owners. So, in some metropolitan areas, greater than 50% of renters are cost burdened.
How do local governments influence housing availability?
[0:01:39]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: There are many different ways that local governments can make it difficult to build housing, and that is the fundamental way that local governments play a role in participating in the housing shortages and the skyrocketing prices. So local governments can do things like implement high fees for development or have cumbersome review processes. They can implement historical overlays or create open space requirements. But the most important way that local governments affect housing shortages is by prohibiting density and in return in exchange allowing only a single-family detached units from being built. So, cities explicitly prohibit multifamily housing in their zoning code, in their regulatory code. Anything from duplexes to high rises might be prohibited by a city government. But they can also do things like have requirements for large setbacks from the street. They can enact minimum lot sizes for every unit. Because higher density and smaller housing units are less expensive, these regulations that limit density also are correlated with higher housing costs.
Many local land use regulations have been in effect for a long time. Why are they causing such significant problems now?
[0:03:03]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: It’s true that these regulations were first used 100 years ago. But the current pattern of very restrictive zoning did not really take off across the United States until the 1970s. Land use regulations tend to get layered over time. And what I mean by that is that, once a city enacts land use regulations, they don’t tend to roll them back. So over time, land use regulations frequently get more and more exclusionary over time, adding more restriction. At the same time population has increased in major metropolitan areas for a variety of different reasons. At the same time, housing development has slowed. So, the market gets squeezed over time. And it is only in recent decades that we’ve really seen the confluence of all of these events, such that even the price of housing for middle income families can be very high.
How have zoning and land use policies contributed to racial segregation in cities?
[0:04:12]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: Segregation for many decades was driven predominantly by private market decisions: racial steering, blockbusting, restrictive covenants, violence, even to defend the color line. But those tactics become at least technically illegal in the middle of the 20th century, through court cases and state and federal fair housing laws. Restrictive zoning essentially arose to take the place of these kinds of tactics. We are much more segregated today than we would be if it weren’t for restrictive zoning, and on top of that, restrictive zoning freezes in place segregation patterns that were created by overt racist actions decades ago. Recent research of mine suggests so that we are about twice as segregated as we would otherwise be if we didn’t have these kinds of regulations in place.
What strategies can cities use to address housing shortages and segregation?
[0:05:16]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: The first strategy that cities can use is to think about having all kinds of housing in every neighborhood. So, housing an all ends of the income distribution, all types of housing, all forms of housing to appeal to a variety of different kinds of people at different income levels. So, these can do things like eliminate parking minimums and expand height restrictions or height limits. Even more dramatically, cities can create public funds for low income developments. All of these different strategies can be used to both minimize segregation or lessen segregation, as well as increase development in the housing market.
What strategies make zoning and land use reforms more effective?
[0:06:03]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: No single reform can work on its own, right. So simply allowing duplexes to be built everywhere in the city is frequently not enough. But we do know that packages of reforms can work together. So you can permit duplexes but also be attentive to floor-area ratios and minimum lot sizes at the same time. And addressing all of these different regulatory restrictions in some way can expand opportunity in the housing market. There is also evidence that something that is happening in California is called “the builders remedy,” which means that developers are allowed to overrule, essentially, local regulations because of state-level policy. And those kinds of state-level interventions can work to increase development. We also know—and some of my work shows this—that lawsuits can be very effective at addressing segregation patterns and longstanding regulatory constriction in the housing market, although there are costs to those as well.
How do zoning and land use decisions impact the environment?
[0:07:17]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: One of the emerging consensuses in the space of housing development is that sprawl—or expanding development further and further away from population density—is in itself harmful to the environment. It causes long commutes. It changes the built environment in ways that we actually understand can be costly for the environment. So, increasing density, pulling people back toward the center, is in itself an environmentally friendly kind of policy.
Are real estate developers the main beneficiaries of policies that encourage development?
[0:07:54]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: Do developers make money? Yes, but people also get housing. The American housing market is a capitalist market. The only way to prevent developers from making money would be to publicly fund housing in a massive way. And that, in my view, is a political nonstarter in most communities in the United States.
What is the connection between zoning reforms and gentrification?
[0:08:23]
JESSICA TROUNSTINE: It is true, historically, that neighborhoods witness economic and racial transition, and that marginalized communities are harmed in this process. So, one response to the concerns about gentrification is to ensure that marginalized communities are at the table and participating in the conversations about the built environment and about development. What’s not clear in the gentrification research more generally is whether or not new development is a cause of gentrification. And so before we limit development in order to prevent gentrification from happening, we need more research and a better understanding of the interaction between those two mechanisms.
Do you have any advice for reporters covering segregation and zoning?
[Posted March 14, 2024 | Download video]
