[burlesona]

Even more basic than that, zoning and development regulation have strongly - in many cases explicitly - racist origins. For example many the first zoning laws in SF were designed to push back against Chinese immigration.

Those same tools have been used to the same effect, and strengthened, for generations. Yet for all the calls for social justice in society now, I almost never hear people calling for the end of zoning, when it may be the greatest perpetrator and enforcer of inequality today. In the Bay Area, zoning is the saw that has cut the bottom off the economic ladder. It’s surprising to me that more people don’t understand that intuitively, but alas.