The Privileged Few: How Exclusionary Zoning Amplifies the Advantaged and Blocks New Housing—and What We Can Do About It

Abstract

“Rethinking Exclusionary Zoning” provocatively claims that the movement to eliminate exclusionary zoning is misguided, and will create a worse set of social, economic, and political conditions than those currently produced by contemporary land-use regulations. In this response, I present several challenges to this claim. First, I demonstrate that “Rethinking Exclusionary Zoning” misses the well-documented political harms wrought by exclusionary zoning. Second, I illustrate that “Rethinking Exclusionary Zoning” misidentifies the central problems and solutions proposed by scholars and policy makers comprising the so-called Anti-EZ Project. These advocates seek fair and equitable land use—not the elimination of all regulations—as part of a broader housing policy agenda to increase the supply of housing in places that need it. They do not view local land-use reform as a panacea to urban inequality.