Q&A: Professor talks income segregation in land use regulations

Associate professor Paavo Monkkonen and assistant professor Michael Lens, of the Urban Planning Department at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, spent the past few years investigating the relationship between land use regulations and segregation by income. Their findings, which emphasized that local land use regulations often exclude low-income families from wealthier neighborhoods, were soon noticed by a number of publications. More recently, however, the research has been cited in the September issue of the White House’s “Housing Development Toolkit.”

Based on the data collected from the 100 largest metropolitan cities in the United States, Monkkonen and Lens had found that increased land use regulation is often associated with income segregation. The professors suggested local cities decrease density restrictions, which has led to increased income segregation.

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The Daily Bruin’s Meghan Hodges spoke with Monkkonen to discuss the implications of this study and its increased circulation among publications, including those by the White House.

Daily Bruin: Can you give an overview of the research you and Lens conducted?

Paavo Monkkonen: We were testing the hypothesis that certain kinds of zoning regulations increase segregation. In this case, we were looking at segregation by income. Other studies have looked at segregation by race, and there’s some existing evidence that some kinds of zoning regulations have been used to segregate different racial groups. When looking at different income groups, we found that, yes, in fact, several kinds of regulations about land use lead to higher levels of segregation in metropolitan areas.

DB: How did your research relate to the topics covered in the White House’s “Housing Development Toolkit”?

PM: The White House toolkit is about increasing housing supply in metropolitan areas, so our work is one of the pieces of evidence they garnered to show that this is a good idea. On page 10 (of the toolkit), they talk about the benefits of smart housing regulation, as they call it. Here, they talk about zoning and changing the ways cities regulate land use. They frame it in a more positive way than we framed it: Instead of saying that cities are using regulation to increase segregation, they talk about how changing the approach to zoning has the potential to reduce economic and racial segregation, and how the government can play an important role.

DB: What drew you and Lens to this topic of research?

PM: Mike and I have similar interests in improving housing policies. We both have a long interest in segregation and how it can be reduced as well as an interest in affordable housing, and making cities places where everyone can have an opportunity to have a quality neighborhood and a quality job. A lot of people might not be surprised by our findings, but no one had really provided strong evidence of this phenomenon. So this is the first paper to provide strong evidence that this is happening.

DB: Were you expecting this kind of reaction to your research?

PM: No, not at all. It took us by surprise. I saw Obama gave a speech and put out the toolkit, and I was very excited that our government was paying attention to this. One of Obama’s main economic advisers, Jason Furman, had given a speech about this topic about a year ago, so he’s been pushing on this for a while, so yes, it’s very exciting that the government’s paying attention to this.