For a long time it seemed that exclusionary zoning in the American suburbs was just a fact of life. Suburbanites, people said, were so committed to defending their property values that nothing could ever be done to increase density and create more housing. But as Ezra Klein reports, that turned out not to be true:
Berkeley, Calif., was the first locality to mandate single-family zoning. In 2021, the Berkeley City Council voted to end single-family zoning, as the liberals who call it home came to see that it was a tool of exclusion. California followed suit, passing a bill that functionally outlawed single-family zoning across the entire state. In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed recently proposed reforms to the way housing is built in the city that delighted even the most hardened of YIMBYs. In Los Angeles, voters raised taxes on themselves to address homelessness and Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council just exempted affordable housing from a lengthy step in the planning process.
Statewide, Gov. Gavin Newsom has now signed more pro-housing bills than I can reasonably describe here, and he just passed a package of permitting and procurement reforms over the initial protests of environmental groups. And it’s not just California: Oregon and Maine also outlawed single-family zoning, and Connecticut and Massachusetts have taken steps in the same direction.
This is happening in the way major political changes usually happen, because a broad range of interest groups have pushed it for decades: young people afraid they could never afford a home, businesses worried about worker shortages, advocates for the homeless, property developers, immigrants, anti-racists, socialists who just like apartment buildings. Note that this list includes groups that lean toward both parties. It probably helps that the spread of homelessness has created an atmosphere of crisis in some places, like Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
Whenever you think that something just can't change, glance at history and ask yourself what has not changed over the past 200 years. The list is not long, and I don't think anything about land use is on it.
I think this is a good example of how cultural changes can eclipse crude self-interest (yes, there's some self-interest in getting homeless people off the street, but that's a lot more subtle and indirect than concern about property values).
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, your remark about representatives of both parties seems a little wishful to me. Institutional, centrist liberals have always found it possible, even congenial, to work with developers and businessmen on issues of common practical interest. The current "can't work with them" divide is about, once again, culture, and I don't see any MAGA types on that list.