[Seminar Cities are back in town] When will local governments take meaningful action on fair housing? The impacts of a 2018 law in California

SEMINAR CITIES ARE BACK IN TOWN (WORK IN PROGRESS)

Sciences Po, 1 place Saint-Thomas d'Aquin, 75007 Paris

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The Routledge Handbook of Comparative Global Urban Studies is a timely intervention into the field of global urban studies, coming as comparison is being more widely used as a method for global urban studies, and as a number of methodological experiments and comparative research projects are being brought to fruition.

It consolidates and takes forward an emerging field within urban studies and makes a positive and constructive intervention into a lively arena of current debate in urban theory. Comparative urbanism injects a welcome sense of methodological rigor and a commitment to careful evaluation of claims across different contexts, which will enhance current debates in the field. Drawing together more than 50 international scholars and practitioners, this book offers an overview of key ideas and practices in the field and extends current thinking and practice.

Speakers

Localized resistance to fair housing and social integration is a challenge facing cities around the world. A 2018 California law requires local governments to affirmatively further fair housing when updating their eight-year housing plans, mandating ‘meaningful action’ towards fair housing goals. We assess the impact of this law by examining eight Southern California municipalities’ 2021-2029 housing plans. In addition, we ask whether local governments are planning for integration by measuring the spatial distribution of planned sites for new housing, including low-income housing, in nearly 200 municipal plans. We find that the 2018 law generated many new local housing programs, yet most of these programs have low potential for impact. Even cumulatively, they are unlikely to meaningfully advance fair housing goals. Moreover, local governments did not use their most meaningful policy level, land use planning, to change their segregated status quo. One reason is the procedural logic of housing plan development. The state does not set expectations about what or how much change is needed to achieve fair housing goals. In fact, we find that the two local governments with the most in-depth housing plans, which included many innovative housing programs, are also the cities with the most segregationist plans, concentrating sites for affordable housing in their least affluent neighborhoods. Our analysis identifies oversight challenges for local action fair housing, and we recommend reforms for implementing state or national agencies. Although our focus is on the recent California experience, the research is relevant to the broader issue of intergovernmental conflicts over land use planning.

Paavo Monkkonen is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, currently a visiting researcher at Sciences Po. He has published over 40 articles on the ways policies and markets shape urbanization and social segregation in cities around the world. His scholarship ranges from studies of national housing finance programs to the impacts of local land use regulations, and spans several countries in Latin America and Asia. Paavo recently launched the UCLA Latin American Cities Initiative, Ciudades, to develop and deepen knowledge networks among students, educators, and professionals in South, Central, and North America. His current projects include a comparison between fair housing policies in California and several European countries.