In 2017, the city of Louisville, Kentucky, analyzed the average life expectancy of its residents. Those in the more affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods in the eastern section of the city lived longest, the city found, with an average life expectancy of 79 to 83 years. In West Louisville—a historically disinvested area with a predominantly Black population—the average life expectancy was a full decade shorter. The stark difference, the city concluded, was “in part due to systemic oppression.” That systemic oppression includes a long history of discriminatory land use policies. 

Throughout the 20th century, governments across the United States promoted segregation and inequity through planning and zoning policies including deed restrictions, redlining, and urban renewal. Like many other cities, Louisville is now confronting its legacy of unjust policies, including a racially restrictive zoning ordinance overturned by the U.S. Supreme court in 1917. Planners in this southeastern U.S. city created an interactive online exhibit that documents that history and have undertaken a comprehensive, community-based equity review of the city’s Land Development Code.

“Discrimination might not always be blatant, but it is still embedded throughout policy—not just in Louisville, but in many cities,” said Louisville Planning Director Emily Liu. “Just acknowledging that this history exists is very important. It’s not created by our current government structure, but we still must deal with this historical racial injustice.” Louisville announced the review of its Land Development Code in July 2020, and Liu’s department has now recommended a set of zoning reforms that will begin to dismantle unfair policies and help create a more equitable, affordable city.

The city, which is home to more than 600,000 people, has been building a foundation for this kind of policy change over the last few years. An updated Comprehensive Plan released in 2018 and a Housing Needs Assessment released in 2019 both focus on removing barriers to affordable housing and investing in communities affected by discriminatory policies. In early 2020, Develop Louisville—an interagency effort focused on planning, community development, and sustainability—commissioned an analysis of local housing regulations that create barriers to equitable and inclusive development. The events of 2020, including the high-profile shooting of Black medical worker Breonna Taylor by Louisville police and the economic uncertainties sparked by the pandemic, brought new urgency to the work. 

“I believe this may be the first time in Louisville’s history that the concepts of equity and planning have been explored with an explicit intention to change or amend the code to achieve meaningful outcomes,” said Jeana Dunlap, an urbanist, strategic advisor, and 15-year veteran of community development in local government. “Local practitioners and policy makers have been chipping away for years, in many ways, to place underutilized properties into productive use and to advance housing choices and alternatives for everyone in the Metro area . . . [but] the concurrent crises related to the pandemic, evictions, and police brutality are informing the current response. Recognizing the need for continuous improvement in a racially charged climate and doing so in a post-COVID-19 environment is imperative to achieving better quality of life and place for everyone in Louisville.”

Dunlap, who grew up in Louisville, facilitated several community listening sessions held by the city’s Planning & Design Department last year. “A lot of people, when they hear about planning and zoning, it automatically puts them to sleep,” she noted wryly at one session. “But some of us may not fully appreciate just how much the Land Development Code, the regulations and how they’re enforced . . . impacts our daily lives.”

The online listening sessions were followed by online workshops on housing, environmental justice, and education. Planning & Design also created a phone and email hotline for those who were unable to participate virtually and doubled the public comment from four to eight weeks. Liu said the department has received a range of input, from residents who want the city to make more changes and do it faster, to those who are wary about the impact of specific changes such as allowing more accessory dwelling units.

The three phases of recommended zoning changes under consideration represent a holistic approach to rezoning that considers aspects of life beyond housing. Liu hopes the recommendations will be approved by the Louisville Metro Planning Commission this spring, at which point they will be taken up by Metro Council, a combined city-county governing body.

The first phase of recommendations includes removing barriers to constructing accessory dwelling units or duplexes to increase housing options and affordability. It would also reduce obstacles to creating small urban farms, community gardens, and similar enterprises to make use of vacant land and increase access to healthy food and open space, and would require that notices about potential development be mailed to nearby renters as well as property owners, to better inform communities of pending changes. These initial recommendations reflect policies that have begun to catch hold in other cities; for example, Portland, Oregon, now allows accessory dwelling units by right and Minneapolis has done away with single-family zoning entirely. 

The second phase, which would be executed in the next 12 to 18 months, includes allowing more multiplexes and tiny homes. It would also require a review of covenants and deed restrictions associated with new subdivisions to ensure they are equitable. The second and third phases also include environmental justice actions such as mitigating pollution in residential areas near highways and requiring environmental impact reviews for certain underserved areas. “We’re trying to correct and mitigate as much as possible,” Liu said. 

“We increasingly are seeing cities grapple with the racist history of their zoning,” said Jessie Grogan, associate director of Reduced Poverty and Spatial Inequality at the Lincoln Institute. “Louisville is providing a model for other cities by taking the time to talk about it directly, and to say, ‘Our previous zoning—sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly—had racist designs. We need to think about how specifically to correct that.’”

Yonah Freemark and Gabriella Velasco of the Urban Institute, who wrote about the organization’s experience advising Louisville on its rezoning effort, agree that the city is at the forefront of this work: “This thorough review of rulemaking and the public process that accompanies it provides a model for other cities looking for ways to reform their land-use regulations.”

While the comprehensive review and the proposed reforms resulting from it represent a significant step, Liu knows that creating a more equitable city will likely be an ongoing process. “I’d say it’s a lifetime commitment for any planner,” she said. “We have a lot of young planners here who are committed to making changes, so . . . I’m very hopeful for the future that our generation and the next generation of planners will continue to make sure that everything we build or create is for all.”

Liz Farmer is a fiscal policy expert and journalist whose areas of expertise include budgets, fiscal distress, and tax policy. She is currently a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute’s Future of Labor Research Center. 

Photograph: Waterfront Park in downtown Louisville. Credit: Bill Griffin, U.S. Department of Interior via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0.

Related Content

Rezoning History: Influential Minneapolis Policy Shift Links Affordability, Equity

Lima es una ciudad extensa y de baja densidad, con barrios que a veces parecen extenderse infinitamente sobre sus cerros de arena. Diversa, compleja y ampliamente informal, Lima experimentó durante el siglo pasado masivas olas de migración interna: mientras que entre 1940 y 1993 la población del Perú se triplicó, la de Lima se multiplicó por diez. Su rostro actual es, en gran medida, producto de qué tanto pudo —o no— adaptarse a esta nueva realidad. 
 
En el primer capítulo de Estación Ciudad, “El desborde de Lima”, discutimos cómo y por qué esta ciudad creció sin brindar alternativas de vivienda accesible para su población más pobre. Visitamos la comunidad de Alto Perú, un barrio de pescadores en el litoral de la ciudad, y a la familia Laynes, residentes del sector desde hace más de quince años. Desde ahí, podemos entender los factores que han llevado a tantas personas a instalarse y permanecer en el suelo no habilitado de la capital peruana, y por qué la ciudad no planificó pensando en ellas. 

De acuerdo con Marcela Román, economista costarricense y experta en urbanismo, muchísimas ciudades de América Latina buscaron “excluir los usos que no queríamos en las ciudades. Y unos usos que seguimos sin querer son los usos para pobres, porque en los planes reguladores no estamos obligando a los municipios a que incluyan suelo para pobres”. 
 
Además de esta opinión especializada y del testimonio de la familia Laynes, para desenredar la madeja de la informalidad de la vivienda en Lima entrevistamos a Martim Smolka, director del Programa para América Latina y el Caribe del Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo, y a un equipo de periodistas del diario peruano El Comercio. El capítulo explora las consecuencias de no planificar la habilitación de suelo para vivienda; los costos escondidos que tiene la vivienda social cuando no contempla las necesidades de sus habitantes; las mafias que lucran con el suelo y los servicios que da el Estado una vez que se habilita el suelo ocupado; y las alternativas que pueden contrarrestar la segregación urbana, como la zonificación inclusiva.

Puede escuchar “El desborde de Lima” y los demás capítulos de Estación Ciudad en Spotify, Castbox, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts o donde sea que escuche sus podcasts. Además, ya que queremos llegar a la mayor cantidad de personas posible, puede descargar el guión de este y los capítulos siguientes en la página web www.estacionciudad.org y compartirlo con quienes tengan alguna dificultad auditiva.

Jimena Ledgard es narradora, directora creativa y guionista para el podcast Estación Ciudad. 

Sofía García es productora general, directora de contenidos urbanos y guionista para el podcast Estación Ciudad.

Fotografía: Juana Laynes sonríe en su cuarto durante la grabación de este capítulo. Crédito: Jerry Ccanto

Early on in Through the Roof: What Communities Can Do About the High Cost of Rental Housing in America, the report’s authors describe the deep roots of the affordability crisis with what they say is “cruel math”: between 1960 and 2016, median income rose by about 11 percent, while median rents rose by 80 percent.

The pandemic has revealed just how precarious life has become for many of the 35 percent of households in rental housing, says one of the authors, NYU professor Ingrid Gould Ellen, in the latest episode of the Land Matters podcast.

“The decline in affordability over these decades has meant it’s very difficult for these renting households to put aside any savings for a rainy day, much less a global pandemic,” says Ellen, who coauthored the Lincoln Institute’s latest Policy Focus Report with Jeffrey Lubell and Mark Willis. “Even small shocks can put households over the edge.”

Restrictive land use regulations, local opposition to new housing, and a construction industry that’s incentivized to focus on higher-end housing have all contributed to a short supply of more affordable homes. Local governments should establish comprehensive plans, she says, that could aid progress through inclusionary housing, density bonuses, community land trusts, and accessory dwelling units. Some communities have put an end to single family-only zoning, so that multifamily housing can be built in more neighborhoods.

The conversation is the latest in a series devoted to the issues and innovations that are prominent in the work of the Lincoln Institute, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Last month the topic was confronting climate change, and this episode is based on another Lincoln Institute goal, reduced poverty and spatial inequality.

You can listen to the show and subscribe to Land Matters on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and a contributing editor of Land Lines.

Photograph Credit: New York University.

Further reading:

Through the Roof: What Communities Can Do About the High Cost of Rental Housing in America

Inclusionary Housing: Creating and Maintaining Equitable Communities 

“Tracking Growth and Evaluating Performance of Shared Equity Homeownership Programs During Housing Market Fluctuations“