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Abstract:
This paper attempts to explain two basic facts of segregation in the United States in recent decades. The segregation of blacks remains everywhere higher than the segregation of immigrants, but the levels are converging. Anti-density zoning is the explanation advanced here. It has two proposed effects on segregation. First, it increases inter-jurisdictional inequality and economic segregation in MSAs, and second, it curtails the exit of minority groups from segregated communities by limiting the supply of affordable housing in integrated areas. Using two data sets of land regulations for the largest metropolitan areas, the results indicate that anti-density regulations are largely responsible for the levels and changes in segregation from 1990 to 2000. The results are robust to controlling for metropolitan area fixed effects in a reduced sample. The use of an exogenous source of zoning -year of statehood- as an instrument makes the effect roughly equal to that of income disparity. A hypothetical switch in zoning regimes from the most exclusionary to the most liberal would reduce the gap between the most and least segregated MSAs by at least 25% for the OLS estimates and at least 50% with the 2SLS estimates. In addition to zoning, government fragmentation, suburbanization, and relative income differences are strong predictors of segregation. Private anti-minority discrimination on the part of whites is found to be associated with modestly higher segregation, but real estate market discrimination is not.

immigration, segregation, zoning, land regulation, local governance, fragmentation, Tiebout

Abstract:
Many scholars have identified local land regulations as an important factor in local housing markets. Fewer papers have studies how these regulations affect metropolitan markets, and of these, none have been able to point to specific policies that drive the results. Instead scholars have relied on composite indexes, which are generally taken as exogenous. First, this paper uses uniquely comprehensive survey data and multiple sources of information to clarify which regulations are the most important, and it finds that anti-density (or exclusionary) zoning consistently outperforms other measures of regulation used in the literature in predicting metropolitan housing supply growth. Second, anti-density zoning is modeled as a function of historic rural settlement patterns, and empirical evidence is marshaled in support of this theory, allowing zoning to endogenously affect housing markets. The results suggest that roughly 20% of the variation in metropolitan housing growth can be explained through density regulations, and this result is remarkably robust to different measurements of density regulation and different assumptions about other aspects of land regulation. The results further show that anti-density regulation inflates prices in the face of demand shocks.

zoning, housing supply, regional growth, land regulation

Abstract:
A body of recent research claims that diversity hinders general trust, but these studies suffer from omitted variables bias by excluding segregation. This article re-examines the issue by considering how the residential isolation of minorities alters trust in cities. The first half of this study closely follows the data and methods of a recent publication and reaches the opposite conclusion by including a comprehensive measure of neighborhood segregation. The data on trust are measured for individuals living in U.S. metropolitan areas. The results strongly suggest that integration increases trust, and if anything, diversity fosters trust for any given level of segregation. The results are replicated using voting as a proxy for trust and civic participation.The mechanism is explored by analyzing the attitudes of whites towards blacks. Diversity and integration are both associated with significantly more favorable attitudes towards blacks. Trust has been identified as a source of good governance and growth; integration is likely to enhance this without presenting a tradeoff between equity and aggregate welfare.

trust, diversity, segregation, racism, prejudice, voting

Abstract:
Recent research has found that differences in neighborhood segregation explain black-white inequality in education attainment and that these differences matter more than school characteristics. In recent years, neighborhood segregation has persisted at high levels in many metropolitan areas with high black populations and the black white achievement gap has stopped converging. This is somewhat puzzling since, at the same time, research on education supply has found that the college wage premium has increased in recent years providing a greater incentive for blacks to become educated. This paper synthesizes these findings and facts to offer a comprehensive theoretical explanation for the gap in black-white education attainment. I model neighborhood segregation as limiting black education attainment by increasing the discount rate of future returns and discuss research that supports that contention. Then I confirm the broadest prediction of the model by using individual data from IPUMs to predict the effect of segregation on black college attainment conditional on the return to college and other controls. The results are highly significant and imply that the black-white achievement gap is fully explained by residential segregation.

segregation, black-white education gap, college premium, social capital

Abstract:
Where does land regulation come from? Scholars generally agree that municipalities perceive fiscal benefits from blocking development, but little research has been done on why some municipalities use zoning but others do not. In fact, there has been very little research on inter-regional variation in the use of zoning, although this variation is widely recognized. This paper aims to fill this theoretical and empirical gap by using zoning data from a 2003 survey and historic newspaper archives dating back to the 19th Century. This paper also uses data from the time just before zoning was widely used, 1910, to estimate what factors predicted zoning today and why those factors varied by region. The results show that differences in historic population density explain much of variation in zoning between regions. As their population densities increase, local governments in rural areas face decreasing returns to scale with respect to the cost of public goods. Thus, areas of the country with more rural places have been more likely to use anti-density zoning. Finally, the presence of rural places was largely determined by the age of an area’s political institutions and, inversely, the degree to which it relied on commercial agriculture. Zoning, therefore, arose in response to urbanization and became uniquely prohibitive in older states whose development patterns and small agricultural economies created more rural settlements.

zoning, history, urban economic development, land regulation, population density

Abstract:
Objectives. Socioeconomic segregation rose substantially in U.S. cities during the final decades of the 20th century and we argue zoning regulations are an important cause for this increase. Methods. We measure neighborhood economic segregation using the Gini Coefficient for neighborhood income inequality and the poor-affluent exposure index. These outcomes are regressed on an index of density zoning developed from the work of Pendall for 50 U.S. metropolitan areas, while controlling for other metropolitan characteristics likely to affect urban housing markets and class segregation. Results. For both 2000 and changes from 1990 to 2000, OLS estimates reveal a strong relationship between density zoning and income segregation, and replication using 2SLS suggests that the relationship is causal. We also show that zoning is associated with higher inter-jurisdictional inequality. Conclusions. Metropolitan areas with suburbs that restrict the density of residential construction are more segregated on the basis of income than those with more permissive density zoning regimes. This arrangement perpetuates and exacerbates racial and class inequality in the United States.

inequality, land regulation, segregation, zoning

Abstract:
We argue that anti-density zoning increases black residential segregation in U.S. metropolitan areas by reducing the quantity of affordable housing in white jurisdictions. Drawing on census data and land regulation indicators compiled by Pendall, we estimate a series of regression models to measure the effect of maximum density zoning on black segregation. Results estimated using ordinary least squares indicate a strong and significant cross-sectional relationship between low-density zoning and racial segregation, even after controlling for other zoning policies and a variety of metropolitan characteristics. This relationship persists under two-stage least squares estimation, using year of statehood as an exogenous source of zoning. Both estimation strategies also suggest that anti-density zoning inhibits desegregation over time. Metropolitan areas where density restrictions prevail among municipalities thus exhibit higher levels of racial segregation at any point in time and experience smaller declines in segregation across time.

urban economics, segregation, land use, zoning