Does Low-Density Zoning Affect Low Minority Populations? by Lew Sichelman
A Cornell University study might just provide the first hard evidence that low-density-only zoning has an exclusionary effect on housing choices for Blacks and Hispanics in the country's major metropolitan areas. Federal reports as far back as the 1960s have suggested such a correlation, but no comprehensive study has ever been undertaken to prove that assertion. Now, though, research by Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning Rolf Pendall at the Ithaca, N.Y. school found that compared to other communities, there were about half as many Blacks and two-thirds as many Hispanics in the jurisdictions with lower housing densities. Pendall's study, which was published in the Spring 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA), is being hailed as "a major breakthrough" by Stuart Meck, principal investigator of the APA's Growing SmartSM project. "Until now," Meck said, "no surveys have ever nailed down with good statistical analysis the contention, made by other studies as far back as the late 1960s, that low-density-only zoning has an exclusionary effect on housing choices for minorities." The study covered 1980 and 1990 Census Bureau data and included a survey of 1,510 jurisdictions in the country's 25 largest metropolitan areas. Altogether 77 percent or 1,168 communities representing 32 percent of the nation's 1990 population responded to Pendall's survey. Ninety percent of the jurisdictions that replied to the survey had zoning ordinances, although only 15 percent had low-density-only zoning (fewer than eight housing units per acre). "I conducted the study to determine whether exclusionary zoning is still a problem in major metropolitan areas," Pendall said, "and to see whether other land-use controls reduced ethnic and racial diversity in American communities." If the housing dynamics in the jurisdictions with low-density-only zoning had been similar to those in communities without exclusionary zoning, he pointed out, the former areas would have some 31,300 more Blacks and 21,600 more Hispanics. Pendall found that low-density only zoning is especially prevalent in metropolitan Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Atlanta. Municipalities in the West, Florida and Maryland tend to accommodate higher density residential development, regulating new housing more actively via greenbelts, building permit caps and adequate public facilities ordinances. Midwestern municipalities tend to regulate less actively with any of these tools. The study also uncovered some anomalies. For example, places that used building permit caps and urban growth boundaries had lower concentrations of African Americans but not significantly lower concentrations of Hispanics. Pendall suggests that communities with low-density-only zoning became more exclusive during the 1980s as a result of growing more slowly, shifting from multi-family to more single-family housing units, and shifting away from renter occupancy. | 
