Zoning and Segregation in Urban Economic History

Allison Shertzer, Tate Twinam and Randall Walsh

No 28351, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Recent work has argued that zoning is responsible for racial segregation, disparities in public goods provision, growing regional inequality, and exploding housing costs in productive areas. However, the slow-moving nature of land regulation’s effects suggests a crucial need for historical perspective to understand how zoning has shaped cities over the long term. This essay places the introduction of zoning in the broader context of urban development in the early twentieth century, with a focus on how the demand for separation of racial groups influenced some of the earliest zoning ordinances in American cities. We also discuss the long-run impact of zoning on the development of cities and highlight the key gaps in our understanding of the role of urban and suburban zoning in fostering segregation within cities and across metropolitan areas. A key lesson from our work in this area is that racial dimensions are important when studying land use regulations, even when the policies in question are ostensibly race neutral.

JEL-codes: J15 N42 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-ure
Note: DAE LE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Allison Shertzer & Tate Twinam & Randall P. Walsh, 2021. "Zoning and segregation in urban economic history," Regional Science and Urban Economics, .

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28351.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Zoning and segregation in urban economic history (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28351

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28351

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().