How Zoning Screws up Everything
How Zoning Screws up Everything
Yale law professor David Schleicher on law and land use
Appears in this episode
This is my question: can we YIMBY harder? Many people are awakening to the enormous costs of restrictive municipal land use and zoning. But what can we do about it? Most assume that restrictive zoning and skyrocketing housing costs are local issues that require local solutions. But as my guest, David Schleicher, makes clear, that's not really true. A few superstar cities choking off housing supply has huge national implications. It creates massive distortions in labor markets and patterns of interstate labor mobility. This has left us a lot poorer than we'd be if our most productive cities were more relaxed about zoning. But as David points out in his terrific paper, “Stuck: The Law and Economics of Residential Stability,” these distortions also screw up the effectiveness of federal macroeconomic policy, which does additional damage to growth. I'm writing a paper about this stuff and I've actually become more rather than less confused about why the federal government can't directly intervene to remedy a problem that has immense national implications. That's why I wanted to talk to David, my favorite YIMBY law professor. If anybody would know, it'd be him. Along the way we talk about the weirdness of American single-family residential zoning, the “homevoter hypothesis,” and whether the pandemic means that telecommuting is here forever. David Schleicher is Professor of Law at Yale Law School, a New Yorker, and a hell of a nice guy.
Readings
“Stuck: The Law and Economics of Residential Stability” by David Schleicher
“Planning an Affordable City,” by Roderick Hills and David Schleicher
“City Unplanning,” by David Schleicher
The Homevoter Hypothesis by William Fischel
Zoning and Property Rights by Robert Nelson
“Suburban Growth Controls: An Economic and Legal Analysis,” by Robert Ellickson
Segregation by Design by Jessica Trounstine
Zoned in the USA by Sonia Hirt
“America’s racist housing rules really can be fixed” by Jerusalem Demsas
“Federal Grant Rules and Realities in the Intergovernmental Administrative State: Compliance, Performance, and Politics” by Eloise Passachoff
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© Model Citizen Media, LLC 2021
How Zoning Screws up Everything
One reason is that "progressives" tend to think too much in terms of good guys (advocates of "affordable" housing))/bad guys (developers) and not enough about externalities in which collective action can make (almost) everyone better off.
Thanks for such an informative and lively episode and the reading list. Just one issue I think could do with some clarification. The problems for macro policy effectiveness of the US ceasing to be an optimal currency area are first and foremost on the monetary policy side.
Fiscal policy in the US - unlike in the Euro zone - is often designed for differential economic conditions (whether at individual/family, local or state level). The degree of state discretion over where, how and when federal monies are spent adds a further bit of complexity and buffers some of the desired fiscal impact of federal programs, as conceived by Congress or the executive branch.
It’s in fact imaginative uses of federal fiscal policy, not just regulatory action, that you and your guest are thinking about.
In that regard, you may find this Monkey Cage article from WaPo of interest. “Is your town urban or rural? A lot of money rides on the government’s answer — which may soon change.” by Zoe Nemerever and Melissa Rogers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/19/is-your-town-urban-or-rural-lot-money-rides-governments-answer-which-may-soon-change/