The New Redlining: CMC forum focuses on “Snob Zoning”

 

Redlining didn’t die, it just changed into a different form.

 

“We’ve morphed from racial zoning to economic zoning,” author Richard Kahlenberg told a sold-out audience on Wednesday, November 29, 2023, at the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s forum, “Is Snob Zoning America’s New Redlining?”

 

Kahlenberg’s new book “Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don’t See,” closely examines America’s “new redlining.” While the old redlining was crafted to discriminate against African Americans, he writes, the new redlining uses restrictive single-family zoning to carefully control what types of housing can be built and where.

 

The forum followed Kahlenberg’s visit two years ago, and the author noted that from his visits to Columbus he has observed that Central Ohio has “both the best and the worst of the issue of housing. On one hand, you have very high levels of exclusionary zoning. At the same time, some really, really exciting things are going on here.”

 

One of those “really exciting things” is that Columbus is undergoing an overhaul of its zoning code, said forum moderator Amy Klaben, President & CEO of Families Flourish.

 

Panelist Shayla Favor, a Columbus City Council member, agreed. 

 

“Our communities did not come to be just by happenstance,” Favor said. “This was government intervention that helped to shape communities that are ghettos today or suburban communities. I believe it’s incredibly important for government to lean in. That’s why I’m excited about the zoning rewrite,” a rewrite that’s happening for the first time in more than 70 years.

 

Even though it’s a good step, “it’s not going to be a silver bullet,” Favor warned. “It’s not just a housing crisis, it’s an eviction crisis and a budding homelessness crisis.”

 

More below:

https://columbusunderground.com/the-new-redlining-cmc-forum-focuses-on-snob-zoning-tf2/

 

Racial exclusion is indefensible, for a number of reasons.

 

Economic/cultural segregation is not only defensible but, to a large degree, inevitable in a free environment.

Columbus having an American Graffiti zoning code for so much longer than other cities kept prices of walkable areas too elevated as compared to unwalkable.

10 hours ago, E Rocc said:

Racial exclusion is indefensible, for a number of reasons.

 

Economic/cultural segregation is not only defensible but, to a large degree, inevitable in a free environment.

 

Zoning is by definition a government intervention into peoples' and businesses' freedom to use their property as they want to, so I don't see what a "free environment" has to do with it.  It can only exasperate economic or cultural segregation that are happening as a result of private decisions.

Stupid stuff happens everywhere, even in growth cities that are "doing it right".....

 

Charlotte City Council voted against this project because it’s max height is 78 feet tall instead of the recommended 65. The building would add 193 homes and 5,600 sf of retail, is one mile from the city center, has support from the neighborhood association, and would be walkable to:

• A 24 acre park

• Two large hospitals

• Cross Charlotte trail

• $300M+ streetcar line

• Dozens of restaurants, shops, and bars

• The largest community college in Charlotte