Zoning changes and social diversity in New York City, 1990–2015

ABSTRACT

The writings of Jane Jacobs led urbanists to advocate for increased social diversity in neighborhoods as a method of promoting vitality in public spaces. Since then, New York City has become both a role model and a testing ground for zoning changes that support this objective. However, since the 2000s community activists and scholars have argued that these zoning changes have led to the dislocation of communities of color and incentivized gentrification. This project analyzed panel social and housing census data from 1990 and 2015 to assess the validity of these arguments. Results suggest that zoning changes have limited and differentiated effects on the different dimensions of social diversity. For instance, they have strong effects on household income diversity, a nuanced effect on race diversity, and slightly negative effects on family type diversity.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban form
• New York City
• social diversity
• zoning
• gentrification

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Juan G. Yunda

Juan G. Yunda is Assistant Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota. He holds a PhD in Community and Regional Planning from The University of Texas at Austin, a BA in Architecture from the National University of Colombia and a MSc in Urban Design and Urban Planning from the Bauhaus-Weimar University and the Tongji University. His research focuses on urban morphology, zoning and land use with a special focus on social equity.