A critical feature of the US systems is the high level of local services, notably schools and (I think) police, funded by property taxes. In Australia, local property taxes (called rates) fund things like trash collection and local roads, but the important services are provided by state governments, with a mix of their own revenue (including some land taxes) and transfers from the federal government. That doesn't eliminate residential segregation, location near "good" schools and so on, but it seems to make the debate a bit different.
Relatedly, local government doesn't have anything like the same independence. The state government can fire councils (mostly for corruption, which is rife at the local level), redraw boundaries, and override planning decisions. The result seems to be that zoning is less of an issue, though it is still debated.
There's a lot going on in WW's essay, but the headline (Zoning=Racism, YIMBYism=Woke politics) and the final paragraph don't really support the middle section which is a broader discussion of residential segregation. I don't disagree that in-group/out-group preferences, racial stereotyping, white-only covenants, red-line lending, and urban renewal of black neighborhoods have all contributed to residential segregation and, also, frequent displacement of black families. And, most important of all, that race and class are inextricably intertwined in housing (and in a lot else).
But tarring "zoning" per se with racial preference really confuses a specific effect with a much broader cause. Zoning is intrinsically economic (and self-regarding) in origin. Selfishness is, intrinsically if unfortunately, a part of all private ownership--especially homeownership, for obvious reasons. Owners of single-family homes generally don't want "non-invested" renters, commercial or industrial businesses, or light-blocking high rises right next to them (just close enough for convenience!). In historic neighborhoods, they also often don't want single-family homes that are incompatible in size or style with existing homes. And they often want to send their kids to neighborhood schools--but can sometimes afford to send their kids to private schools if local schools don't measure up. State and local policies that provide levels of service roughly proportionate to property assessments contribute to stereotyping neighborhoods of poorer non-homeowners.
Insofar as black families are generally poorer and proportionately more likely to rent, they disproportionately fit the criterion of "those" people. In the urban South, pre-civil rights law zoning hardly existed, but an enfranchised poor black population now makes the rationale for zoning explicitly racial. And when a diverse coalition becomes a majority and takes power, panic often ensues.
Portland, Oregon, where I live, is one of the whitest cities in one of the whitest states. It's also a well-known liberal bastion. Despite strong zoning regulations without racial animus that I can discern, housing policies do impact minorities and immigrants in a couple of ways.
First, a good part of Portland's black business district and some housing was razed beginning in the 60s for a hospital, freeway, and new sports stadium. The "General Good" trumped black people's interests.
Second, I live in what was formerly a close-in early 20th-century "suburb," subsequently a black ghetto, now a re-gentrified "historic" neighborhood. Black families have been disproportionately displaced by more affluent white homebuyers.
So, third, black and recent immigrants get pushed eastward into newer suburbs. So does much crime (whoops, unless it is predominantly white anarchists trashing downtown--another story!).
Zoning and affordable housing need to be discussed piecemeal, not as part of a broad theory of un-woke NIMBYism or woke YIMBYism. Like the debates over neighborhood schools and school choice (and now charter schools), the issues surrounding zoning reflect multiple concerns, some of them legitimate. Piecemeal policies will always need to be developed--to no one's complete satisfaction--in order to deal with competing claims. (And the characterization "woke" needs to be banned from serious discussions of all social policies.)
A critical feature of the US systems is the high level of local services, notably schools and (I think) police, funded by property taxes. In Australia, local property taxes (called rates) fund things like trash collection and local roads, but the important services are provided by state governments, with a mix of their own revenue (including some land taxes) and transfers from the federal government. That doesn't eliminate residential segregation, location near "good" schools and so on, but it seems to make the debate a bit different.
Relatedly, local government doesn't have anything like the same independence. The state government can fire councils (mostly for corruption, which is rife at the local level), redraw boundaries, and override planning decisions. The result seems to be that zoning is less of an issue, though it is still debated.
There's a lot going on in WW's essay, but the headline (Zoning=Racism, YIMBYism=Woke politics) and the final paragraph don't really support the middle section which is a broader discussion of residential segregation. I don't disagree that in-group/out-group preferences, racial stereotyping, white-only covenants, red-line lending, and urban renewal of black neighborhoods have all contributed to residential segregation and, also, frequent displacement of black families. And, most important of all, that race and class are inextricably intertwined in housing (and in a lot else).
But tarring "zoning" per se with racial preference really confuses a specific effect with a much broader cause. Zoning is intrinsically economic (and self-regarding) in origin. Selfishness is, intrinsically if unfortunately, a part of all private ownership--especially homeownership, for obvious reasons. Owners of single-family homes generally don't want "non-invested" renters, commercial or industrial businesses, or light-blocking high rises right next to them (just close enough for convenience!). In historic neighborhoods, they also often don't want single-family homes that are incompatible in size or style with existing homes. And they often want to send their kids to neighborhood schools--but can sometimes afford to send their kids to private schools if local schools don't measure up. State and local policies that provide levels of service roughly proportionate to property assessments contribute to stereotyping neighborhoods of poorer non-homeowners.
Insofar as black families are generally poorer and proportionately more likely to rent, they disproportionately fit the criterion of "those" people. In the urban South, pre-civil rights law zoning hardly existed, but an enfranchised poor black population now makes the rationale for zoning explicitly racial. And when a diverse coalition becomes a majority and takes power, panic often ensues.
Portland, Oregon, where I live, is one of the whitest cities in one of the whitest states. It's also a well-known liberal bastion. Despite strong zoning regulations without racial animus that I can discern, housing policies do impact minorities and immigrants in a couple of ways.
First, a good part of Portland's black business district and some housing was razed beginning in the 60s for a hospital, freeway, and new sports stadium. The "General Good" trumped black people's interests.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/phb/article/655460
Second, I live in what was formerly a close-in early 20th-century "suburb," subsequently a black ghetto, now a re-gentrified "historic" neighborhood. Black families have been disproportionately displaced by more affluent white homebuyers.
So, third, black and recent immigrants get pushed eastward into newer suburbs. So does much crime (whoops, unless it is predominantly white anarchists trashing downtown--another story!).
Zoning and affordable housing need to be discussed piecemeal, not as part of a broad theory of un-woke NIMBYism or woke YIMBYism. Like the debates over neighborhood schools and school choice (and now charter schools), the issues surrounding zoning reflect multiple concerns, some of them legitimate. Piecemeal policies will always need to be developed--to no one's complete satisfaction--in order to deal with competing claims. (And the characterization "woke" needs to be banned from serious discussions of all social policies.)