About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

96 Ind. L.J. 395 (2020-2021)
The Zoning Straitjacket: The Freezing of American Neighborhoods of Single-Family Houses

handle is hein.journals/indana96 and id is 423 raw text is: THE ZONING STRAITJACKET: THE FREEZING OF AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOODS OF SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSES ROBERT C. ELLICKSON* Municipal zoning practices profoundly shape urban life in the United States. In regions such as Silicon Valley, regulatory barriers to residential construction have helped raise house prices to roughly ten times the national median. These astronomic prices have prompted some households to move to places, such as Texas, where housing is far cheaper. I have been engaged in an empirical study ofzoning practices in Silicon Valley, Greater New Haven, and Greater Austin. This Article presents one of my central findings, induced from those metropolitan areas and elsewhere: local zoning politics typically freezes land uses in an established neighborhood of detached houses. The consequences are profound. Single-family neighborhoods constitute a solid majority of urban land in the United States. Within these frozen neighborhoods, real estate markets cannot respond to changes in supply and demand conditions. This Article marshals a variety of evidence to prove that the zoning straitjacket exists. It also discusses possible exceptions to it. The most plausible is proximity to a newly opened transit node, an event that may transform zoning outcomes, even in a neighborhood of houses. Building on the work of others, notably William Fischel, I explore the dynamics of local zoning politics. The goal is to develop an overarching theory that is consistent with the larger study's three basic empirical findings: that suburbs in Greater Austin, Texas, are relatively pro-growth; that, even in Greater Austin, zoning policies freeze land uses in established neighborhoods of detached houses; and that the opening of a new transit node sometimes can loosen the zoning straitjacket. * Walter E. Meyer Professor Emeritus of Property and Urban Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School. The Oscar M. Ruebhausen Fund at Yale Law School generously provided support. Thanks to Eric Biber, Chris Elmendorf, Lee Anne Fennell, Owen Jones, David Schleicher, and Lior Strahilevitz for comments, and to Brian Chen for exceptional research assistance. Thanks also to participants in the University of Chicago Law School's Law-and-Economics Workshop. The author is willing to provide access to all underlying data.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most