The suburb of Scarsdale in New York, known for its wealth and liberal residents, has shown strong support for Joe Biden in the 2020 election. While Scarsdale residents may not support Trump’s wall on the Mexican border, they have erected their own invisible wall through zoning regulations that prohibit multifamily housing and effectively exclude non-wealthy individuals, including people of color, from their community. This phenomenon is not unique to Scarsdale but is seen in many affluent, liberal suburbs across the country, where economic and racial segregation is socially engineered through government policies.
In a new report for The Century Foundation, I compare Scarsdale to another nearby suburb, Port Chester, which has significantly different demographics. Scarsdale boasts a median household income of over $250,000, nearly three times that of Port Chester, and has a much higher percentage of residents with college degrees. Meanwhile, three-quarters of Port Chester’s elementary students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, compared to none in Scarsdale. Scarsdale is predominantly non-Hispanic white or Asian American, while Port Chester has a higher percentage of Black and Hispanic residents.
The zoning laws in Scarsdale severely limit the construction of anything other than single-family homes, with only 0.2 percent of lots allowing multifamily housing. In contrast, Port Chester permits multifamily housing on about half of its land. Between 2014 and 2021, 41 percent of new housing units authorized in Port Chester were for multifamily housing, while none of the 218 units in Scarsdale were for multifamily homes. When proposals for multifamily housing arise in Scarsdale, residents raise numerous objections, often without merit, such as concerns about overcrowded schools despite evidence showing declining school enrollment.
Many low-income individuals, particularly single mothers, expressed during interviews for my book, Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don’t See, their desire for better schools for their children, which they believe would be possible in communities like Scarsdale. However, the significant disparities in education resources and outcomes between Scarsdale and Port Chester indicate a lack of opportunity for low-income students. Scarsdale spends much more per student and has higher achievement levels than Port Chester. Research shows that when low-income students attend lower-poverty schools, they can significantly reduce the achievement gap with their middle-class peers.
While the media often focuses on the plight of immigrant families at the border, it fails to capture the barriers faced by working-class families in places like Port Chester, who are shut out of higher-opportunity public schools in places like Scarsdale due to the exclusionary zoning practices. By artificially restricting housing supply, Scarsdale’s zoning laws and similar rules in other New York City suburbs drive up home prices in the metropolitan region. The New York Housing Compact proposed by Governor Kathy Hochul aims to increase housing supply and provide a fast-track approval process for housing permits, but faces resistance from affluent liberal suburbs like Scarsdale.
Notably, both liberal and conservative wealthy areas contribute to barriers to new housing, but liberal areas tend to have stricter zoning regulations. Research has shown that overly restrictive zoning is most prevalent along the West Coast and the Northeast corridor, which are heavily Democratic areas. Suburbs like Lexington, Massachusetts, and Princeton, New Jersey, known for their liberal leanings, have stringent zoning requirements that limit housing options.
However, there have been recent successes in challenging the exclusivity of wealthy suburbs through legislative reforms. Oregon and California have enacted laws that overturn single-family zoning ordinances, allowing for increased housing options like duplexes and subdivision of lots. These reforms have opened up previously closed-off communities and provide hope for breaking down the zoning walls that perpetuate economic and racial segregation.
In conclusion, the issue of exclusionary zoning in affluent, liberal suburbs like Scarsdale is a complex and deeply rooted problem. It not only perpetuates economic and racial segregation but also limits housing supply and drives up home prices. The recent successes in challenging these practices through legislative reforms offer hope for a more inclusive future, but there is still much work to be done to overcome the resistance from affluent communities and create opportunities for all individuals to live in diverse and equitable neighborhoods.
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