UC Irvine

Southern California’s growing affordable housing crisis underscores socioeconomic inequities tied to land use regulations across the region. Contemporary economists suggest that deregulating restrictive zoning and constructing more low-and moderate-income housing could promote economic growth in the region. Yet local, state, and federal procedures hinder equity and access goals in several areas, such as housing and policy. The failure to reform policies that have disenfranchised and restricted Black, Indigenous, and people of color access to essential urban infrastructure and political representation has led to significant issues within the planning profession. Due to the structuring of local government budgets, competing demands, and sometimes their ideological inclinations, housing pressures have been left to be addressed by private developers and consultants. Local governments across California have continued to struggle or refuse to maintain funding and operations to support affordable housing construction and have prioritized and incentivized land use that bolsters tax revenues. Land supply pressures and conventional suburban development have induced other problems, such as limited access to economic opportunities and affordable homes and increased risk of homelessness or displacement, among other barriers exacerbated by racial and ethnic discrimination. Without significant reform in land use policies, harmful practices will not only recur but will likely worsen. Several scholars have studied the existence and emergence of inequalities within the planning profession. The existing literature has explored how land use regulations are influenced by socio-political policies to promote often inequitable urban environments through various means. Many studies have centered on the histories of redlining, zoning, gentrification, and other predatory processes carried out by different levels of government and local planning institutions. However, the dominant preference towards neoliberal economic policies has prioritized the growth potential of land in the economy. As a result, private market forces play a more intrinsic role in land use governance to achieve the highest returns, and jurisdictions are tasked with efforts to rezone to accommodate larger shares of public housing requirements amid broad-ranging neoliberal urban procedures and policies. (Hanlon 2010; Smith 2002; Goetz, 2013) The growing connection between financial actors and the private real estate sector's role in interpreting land values has obscured the significant need for the provision of affordable housing nationwide. However, this research will explore the Greater Southern California region's role in establishing more equitable shares of affordable housing. I intend to define how the actions of economically-motivated stakeholders such as developers, NIMBYs, and local government officials interact with race-ethnicity and income disparities to stunt housing allocation patterns in the Greater Los Angeles Region. By addressing specific legislative changes by California lawmakers to support affordable housing development, this research will help validate recent legislation efforts to further affirmatively affirm fair housing.