Recent work has argued that zoning is responsible for racial segregation, disparities in public goods provision, growing regional inequality, and exploding housing costs in productive areas. However, the slow-moving nature of land regulation’s effects suggests a crucial need for historical perspective to understand how zoning has shaped cities over the long term. This essay places the introduction of zoning in the broader context of urban development in the early twentieth century, with a focus on how the demand for separation of racial groups influenced some of the earliest zoning ordinances in American cities. We also discuss the long-run impact of zoning on the development of cities and highlight the key gaps in our understanding of the role of urban and suburban zoning in fostering segregation within cities and across metropolitan areas. A key lesson from our work in this area is that racial dimensions are important when studying land use regulations, even when the policies in question are ostensibly race neutral.

最近的工作认为，分区是造成种族隔离，公共产品提供不平等，区域不平等加剧和生产区住房成本爆炸的原因。但是，土地法规影响的缓慢变化性质表明，历史的观点非常需要，以了解分区是如何长期塑造城市的。本文将区域划分引入到20世纪初期的更广泛的城市发展背景中，重点放在种族群体分离的需求如何影响美国城市中最早的一些区域划分条例上。我们还讨论了分区对城市发展的长期影响，并着重指出了我们对城市和郊区分区在促进城市内和大城市之间隔离的作用中的认识的主要差距。