A friend asked what are the best papers supporting land use liberalization. That’s a broad question, but here are some of my answers.
Affordability
The basic case for zoning reform, across the political spectrum, is that the rent is too damn high. Michael Manville, Michael Lens, and Paavo Monkkonen give a combative and accessible review of the evidence in their Urban Studies paper (2020). The principal drawback is that it is rapidly becoming dated, as evidence and research come in from more recent reforms. The most important of those may be Auckland’s, which Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy has reported in a few papers, including this Economic Policy Center working paper (2023). Using a synthetic control method (which is not perfect, to be sure), Greenaway-McGrevy finds that upzoned areas had 21 to 33 percentage points less rent growth.
A new candidate for the best review of the evidence on zoning reform and affordability is Vicki Been, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Katherine M. O’Regan’s late 2023 working paper, “Supply Skepticism Revisited.”
Racial integration
Many authors from different disciplines have shown that both the intent and effect of zoning as practiced in the U.S. were racist and classist. That is, zoning policies have separated people by race, homeownership status, and income more than would have occurred in an unregulated market. Allison Shertzer, Tate Twinam, and Randall Walsh’s review of the evidence in Regional Science and Urban Economics (2022) is concise and helpful.
However, fewer authors have attempted to show that removing specific zoning restrictions reduces existing patterns of segregation. One is Edward Goetz, in Urban Affairs Review (2021). He makes a qualitative argument. I’m unaware of a good causal, quantitative paper showing how broad upzoning impacts local integration (but I would happily commission it if anyone wants to write it!)
Environment & climate
Along some dimensions, it is quite straightforward to argue that zoning reform benefits the environment. In other contexts, there’s more tension between environmentalism and other goals of liberalization. Does allowing denser subdivisions on the edge of Texas cities increase or reduce carbon emissions relative to baseline? I don’t know.
The IPCC chapter on urbanism (2022) stands out as a consensus summary if not as a model of persuasive prose.
Utopia City 2080, by DamianKrzywonos (CC 3.0)
Prosperity
Zoning reform can deliver a large boost to economic growth and living standards. I hesitate to accept any particular number, but the best work is clearly in Gilles Duranton and Diego Puga’s Econometrica paper (2023). From their conclusion:
Rights
Zoning directly constrains the right to use real property. It’s hard to turn that obvious statement into meaningful research. Bob Ellickson has done so as effectively as anyone, including in a widely-cited exploration of alternative, lighter-handed approaches to solving the problems zoning is purported to solve (University of Chicago Law Review, 1973).
There’s also a strain of thought around “the right to the city” and self-expression through activities from art to business, which need to take place somewhere. These literatures include interesting gems, like Beckers and Kloosterman’s 2014 study of pre- and post-war Dutch neighborhoods, but none that can make for real inclusion here.
Corruption
Property developers are almost always among the top donors to city councilmembers’ campaigns. As with segregation, this is a place where the problem is clearer than the solution. No recent paper can best Jesse Dukeminier and Clyde Stapleton’s 1961 classic in the Kentucky Law Journal, “The Zoning Board of Adjustment: A Case Study in Misrule.” I would welcome (and commission!) a paper testing whether broad upzoning (perhaps via state preemption) reduced corruption.
What else?
Add your own nominees in the comments!
