Exclusionary zoning

Exclusionary zoning is the use of zoning ordinances to exclude certain types of land uses from a given community, especially to regulate racial and economic diversity. In the United States, exclusionary zoning ordinances are standard in almost all communities. Exclusionary zoning was introduced in the early 1900s, typically to prevent racial and ethnic minorities from moving into middle- and upper-class neighborhoods. Municipalities use zoning to limit population density, such as by prohibiting multi-family residential dwellings or setting minimum lot size requirements. These ordinances raise costs, making it less likely that lower-income groups will move in. Development fees for variance (land use), a building permit, a certificate of occupancy, a filing (legal) cost, special permits and planned-unit development applications for new housing also raise prices to levels inaccessible for lower income people.

Exclusionary land-use policies exacerbate social segregation by deterring any racial and economic integration, decrease the total housing supply of a region and raise housing prices. As well, regions with much economic segregation channel lower income students into lower performing schools thereby prompting educational achievement differences. A comprehensive survey in 2008 found that over 80% of United States jurisdictions imposed minimum lot size requirements of some kind on their inhabitants. These ordinances continue to reinforce discriminatory housing practices throughout the United States.

Around the turn of the 20th century, rapid immigration and urbanization in the United States transformed the country. Middle and upper-class citizens encountered greater diversity than they had before and many cities began implementing the first exclusionary zoning policies. In 1908, Los Angeles adopted the first citywide zoning ordinance to protect residential areas from industrial nuisances. However, the noted urban planner Yale Rabin observed, "What began as a means of improving the blighted physical environment in which people lived and worked" became "a mechanism for protecting property values and excluding the undesirables." In 1910, Baltimore enacted the first racial zoning ordinance, and the practice spread quickly. Many early regulations directly barred racial and ethnic minorities from community residence until explicit racial zoning was declared unconstitutional in 1917. Less explicitly ethnic but still exclusionary ordinances continued to gain popularity throughout the country. Despite resistance from excluded peoples and activists, these ordinances are still used extensively across the country.

The increased use of exclusionary zoning finally caused the United States Department of Commerce to address the issue with the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act in 1922. The legislation established the institutional framework for zoning ordinances and delegated land-use power to local authorities for the conservation of community welfare and provided guidelines for appropriate regulation usage. In light of those developments, the Supreme Court considered zoning's constitutionality in the 1926 landmark case of Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. The Court ultimately condoned zoning as an acceptable means of community regulation. After the decision, the number of municipalities with zoning legislation multiplied, from 368 in 1925 to over 1,000 in 1930.

After the end of World War II and the country's subsequent suburbanization process, exclusionary zoning policies experienced an uptick in complexity, stringency and prevalence as suburbanites attempted to more effectively protect their new communities. Many people fled the cities and their unwanted elements as they searched for their suburban utopia. They feared that left unchecked, the very city elements that they had escaped would follow them into the suburbs. Thus, middle-class and affluent whites, who constituted the majority of suburban inhabitants, more frequently employed measures preventing immigrant and minority integration. As a result of resident's newly-found protectionism, the number of jurisdictions with such ordinances increased to over 5,200 by 1968.

Well-off whites mainly inhabited the suburbs, but the remaining city residents, primarily impoverished minorities, faced substantial obstacles to wealth. Many attributed their impecunious state to their exclusion from the suburbs. In response, a flurry of exclusionary zoning cases were brought before the Supreme Court in the 1970s that would ultimately determine the tactic's fate. The Supreme Court nearly always sided with the proponents of exclusionary zoning, which virtually halted any zoning reform movement. The ability of minorities and other excluded populations to challenge exclusionary zoning became essentially nonexistent and has allowed the policy's unabated continuation.

American courts have historically most greatly valued individual property rights. However, more recently, concern for the general community welfare has begun taking precedence thus exculpating most exclusionary zoning measures. Communities are granted freedom to enact policies in accordance with community welfare goals even in the case that they infringe upon a specific individual's property rights. Courts also have regularly ruled as if municipal regulatory power emanated from their role as agents for local families rather than for the government. Regulation was equated with some manner of 'market force' rather than 'state force' thereby allowing the policies to bypass many questions of justification required for state policy enactment. For example, they did not have to prove that their policies benefited the well-being of society at large. Rather, they could merely enact regulations on the sole basis that it was their prerogative as an agent of the market regardless of any adverse effects on others. Therefore, exclusionary mechanisms were allowed to endure as complaints about the negative effects on the excluded population ultimately became null and irrelevant.

Buchanan v. Warley 1917: A Louisville city ordinance prohibiting the sale of property in majority-white neighborhoods to black people was brought to court. It was ultimately declared that such racial restriction was unconstitutional and a breach of individuals' freedom of contract.