Jurisdictional Size and Residential Development: Are Large-Scale Local Governments More Receptive to Multifamily Housing?

Abstract

In the United States, particularly in high-cost urban areas, local resistance to multifamily housing development has been widely noted. In many metropolitan areas, legal authority over land-use regulation is assigned to jurisdictions that often are very small, and some scholars argue that this small-scale local control institutionalizes neighborhood-level opposition to new construction. Using census tracts as units of analysis, we assess the relationship between the population size of the city, county, or township that regulates a tract’s land use and the change in multifamily units between two recent waves of the American Community Survey (2008–2012 and 2014–2018). Results of regression analysis indicate that larger jurisdictional population size is indeed associated with increased multifamily construction. However, the relationship applies only for jurisdictions with populations exceeding 100,000 and decays at jurisdictional populations of more than 1 million. This nonlinearity may reflect quasi-monopolistic land-use control in the largest jurisdictions.

When Smaller Local Governments Permit More Housing: Reassessing the Effect of Local Control on Land Use Policy

“…In the same vain, our results show that there is more to land use policy than understanding the power of local NIMBY homeowners. While these undoubtedly play a role in pushing land use policy in a more restrictive direction, other attributes of local institutional structure also shape the politics of housing development (Marantz and Lewis, 2021). More broadly, our article reaffirms that moving beyond special interest and focusing on city interest might lead to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between local control and policy outcomes (Peterson et al, 1981;Fischel, 2005).…”

“…While this account is quite popular, this article provides an important corrective, arguing that the question of how local control shapes land use policy remains unsettled. Existing evidence is either based on cross-sectional correlation in the extent of local control and house building (e.g., Marantz and Lewis, 2021), or it only provides indirect evidence by studying electoral systems or inter-municipal cooperation (e.g., Mast, 2020;Tricaud, 2021). Building on Paul Peterson's notion of the city interest (1981), we argue theoretically, and show empirically, that more local control will not always lead to more restrictive land use policy.…”

“…This might make it easier for this group to influence local politicians that they deserve to be listened to. In addition, homeowners vote at higher rates relative to renters (Marantz and Lewis, 2021), reproducing their power advantage. 3 Developers, on the other hand, whom we expect to favor more housing, gain power relative to local homeowners when local control decreases, i,e., in larger jurisdictions.…”

“…Homeowners, who are likely to oppose new construction because of property values, emotional attachment, and fear of congestion, have relatively more power when control is very localized, such as in small jurisdictions. They are empowered by the relatively short distance between local politicians and residents (Marantz and Lewis, 2021). All else equal, a larger fraction of a jurisdiction's electorate will be near the site of a given residential development in a smaller jurisdiction.…”

“…goods by limiting access to them (Trounstine, 2020). A straight-forward implication of this argument is that reducing local control by moving some or all power over land use to regional or even national governments (for an overview, see Infranca, 2019;Schuetz, 2022), or by increasing the size of local jurisdictions (see Marantz and Lewis, 2021), will lead to more liberal land use policy.…”