es for city planners and zoning boards, which are challenged by the conflicting demands of ensuring equity in housing stock availability and meeting the needs and serving the interests of taxpayers and different constituencies. Consequently, exclusionary zoning has remained a fixture on the American landscape, despite widespread recognition of the inherent injustice and inequity of such ordinances.
Morgan (779) defined ôexclusionary zoningö as ôthose land use controls which interfere seriously with the availability of low and moderate income housing.ö To a large degree, exclusionary zoning ordinances and practices have negatively impacted most significantly upon the poor and upon racial and ethnic minorities (Pendall, 125). Such policies inhibit the ability of such groups and individuals to enjoy mobility in society, inhibit the achievement of color- and race-blind residential integration, and deny specific groups access to the purported benefits and advantages (e.g., better schools, open spaces, jobs, etc.) of suburban and collar community living. It is in this general background that the present report on the practice of exclusionary zoning, both past and present, and its impact on urban and regional planning.
As Pendall (126) noted, despite enormous gains over the course of the past fifty years, American metropolitan and surrounding areas remain indisputably segregated by race. For decades, racial segregation has characterized city blocks and entire jurisdictions as well. Such jurisdiction-level segregation persists throughout most of America today, despite substantial movement of African-Americans to the suburbs since about 1970. There are some observers, including Powell (21) and Pendall (1130) who would argue that racial segregation has grown even worse over time in many metropolitan locations as White non-Hispanics have moved to even more distant suburban locations. For a future planning and development professional...