Panel Paper:
Quantifying a Century of Land Use Change in Los Angeles
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Leah Brooks & Byron Lutz
APPAM Abstract
March 25, 2016
Economists generally blame the high cost of housing in an increasing number of US metropolitan areas on stringent land use regulation. By promulgating regulations that limit the supply of new homes or densification of existing neighborhoods, local governments limit supply and thereby increase prices. Ganong and Shoag (2015) argue that land use regulation, through its impact on home prices, has decreased the speed of income convergence across states. More damning, Moretti and Hsieh (2015) contend that land use regulation has decreased economic growth by 10 percent over the last fifty years.
Where do these stringent regulations come from? And how do they play out across rich and poor neighborhoods? In this paper, we examine the roots of land use regulation by assembling a dataset that allows us to observe land use regulation at the level of the individually-owned piece of land – the parcel – in three eras. The first is the original zoning code of 1922, the second is the second zoning map of 1946, and the final is the current zoning.
Our first contribution is to provide descriptive statistics of the quantity of land use regulation change. We find that, relative to 1922, about one-quarter of 1922 properties are now zoned less permissively (down-zoned), and only about one-tenth are zoned more permissively (up-zoned). By the fall, we anticipate being able to add the 1946 zoning to this picture, allowing us to test whether this new restrictiveness is a feature of the present or had its roots in early zoning changes.
Our second contribution is to provide evidence on the correlates of zoning change, providing evidence of whether zoning changes are driven by demographic or geographic factors. To do so, we combine our parcel-level data with contemporary zone codes with decennial census data from each decade from 1930 to the present.
Our preliminary findings are consistent with some conventional wisdom about homeowners’ lack of support for change (Fischel, 2005): areas that initially had large shares of single-family homes are more likely to have no change or down-zoning. Contrary to current perceptions, areas that had more Anglo residents in 1940 are also more likely to zoned less permissively now. When we add the 1940 data, we can assess whether zoning change pre- or post-dates white flight (see Schertzer and Randall, 2015).
