The Role Of Metropolitan Zoning In Racial And Income Segregation

Since the early 1900s, zoning in some way has shaped many metropolitan areas in the United States. Zoning defines how a jurisdiction plans to use each parcel of land, with this there are positive and negative impacts. In Chicago, we see issues with segregation which stems from some of the city’s first zoning ordinances about a hundred years ago. With zoning we have seen racial and income segregation, which has led to unequal opportunities for less fortunate families. With that being said, zoning can also provide affordable housing and promote urban redevelopment to level the playing field for all individuals. If metropolitan areas address issues caused by zoning they can create a future of zoning that is beneficial to not only their jurisdictions but their residents as well.

Jurisdictions all throughout the United States use zoning to limit the amount of housing developed in a specific area. These practices have been found very common in metropolitan areas in the Midwest such as Chicago, Illinois. The Metro area of Chicago is among the most complicated and fragmented in the United States. This can stem back almost 100 years ago when zoning was first introduced to Chicago. After model planning and zoning acts were prepared by the department of commerce in the 1920s, the practice of zoning spread quickly and has remained perhaps the leading tool of land use control in the United States.

In 1919, the Chicago mayor, William Hale Thompson, told the audience at the Citizens' Zone Plan Conference why his government supported the creation of comprehensive zoning ordinances. Along with the need to preserve property values, Thompson argued that zoning was critical for the city's industrial growth. Four years later, in 1923, the city adopted its first zoning ordinance which had profound implications for how the city grew from there. These zoning ordinances led Chicago to become one of the most segregated cities in the country. Around the same period that Europeans came to America and African-Americans traveled north, zoning ordinances became increasingly popular which in turn steered race segregation. At the time, both European and African-Americans encountered shortages of housing. The Chicago Zoning Board adopted a strategy that had the effect of keeping blacks in place through high-density housing. In contrast, lower density zoning in European immigrant neighborhoods suggested an expectation or intention that these immigrants would spread out across the city.

For every one-standard deviation increase of the black population share of a neighborhood, there was a 27-point increase in the likelihood of the neighborhood being zoned for higher density. For European immigrants, the more of them in a neighborhood, the less likely it was zoned for higher density. Zoning can provide areas some control over its land uses, appearance, and quality of life ultimately having jurisdictions shape their community to how they choose. If a metro area enjoys the look and feel of their neighborhoods, zoning can allow them the conserve those existing neighborhoods and even preserve existing structures. To avoid nightclubs being next to schools and high-rise commercial buildings neighboring family homes, zoning can avoid potential nuisances and prevent the mixing of incompatible land uses. Affordable housing has been a major issue in our society and the development of multi-family housing decreases the gap between the rich and poor to level out the playing field and make housing more affordable. Developers who pursue to build multi-family housing see financial benefits as land values increase and find it one of the best ways to provide affordable housing.

In regions looking to improve physical structures and the economy in those areas, higher density on larger sites is a promising new way to encourage land assembly for urban redevelopment. Furthermore, graduated density zoning can increase the housing supply in markets where zoning has unduly restricted new construction. Allowing for property values to increase and encourages voluntary land assembly which allows for higher density on larger sites. Zoning has seen problems with density, affordability of housing and lot size requirements which cause income and race to shape metropolitan areas. Local jurisdictions issue minimum lot size requirements which trigger the price of the lot and the size/price of housing to increase contributing to race and income segregation. This use of zoning is subsequently looked as tool to deter entry of poorer households into wealthier areas. For example, in Chicago there is an absence for funding of affordable housing where there is the greatest need for it; the better-off neighborhoods. On the South side of Chicago, affordable housing is much easier to come by and has been where a lot of support has been supplied by jurisdictions rather than the North and West sides of Chicago, where the need for affordable housing is much greater. This causes low-income residents to cluster in areas with undesirable land uses and high density.

So this leads to jurisdictions with low-density zoning less likely to have African-American residents than those without such regulations. This making low density areas more desirable and has increased housing prices far above construction costs. Therefore, low income and African-American residents get placed in high density areas where traffic, higher cost and less outdoor space are common and not likely factors to raise a family. It has been no secret to any jurisdiction that zoning has caused certain issues to their cities but they can use these complications as a learning experience and provide solutions for the future. When we have seen development outplay population growth, lower density has seemed to follow as the population sprawls out. We can look at Chicago, who urbanized nearly 300, 000 acres of land between 1982 and 1997. This guided a 23% increase in land mass when population grew by only 9. 1%, resulting in density dropping from 6. 4 to 5. 7 persons per acre over the period.

With metropolitan areas sprawling out and using new land to build on, it is a great opportunity to build multi-family developments and close the wealth gap between the rich and the poor. This future of zoning can stipulate benefits for jurisdictions and their residents to deliver affordable housing in wealthier areas where it is a bigger problem than the dense poorer neighborhoods. Since the 1900s, Zoning ordinances have shaped cities in the United States and planning for the future can eradicate negative impacts and deliver positive regulations.