Abstract: We construct the first panel dataset of suburban zoning maps and bylaws for a major American metropolitan area using the setting of greater Chicago. Combining this dataset with detailed public records allows us to observe the regulatory environment under which land in the suburbs was subdivided and developed. Restrictive zoning emerged earlier than widely believed, and lot size regulations were binding as early as the 1920s. However, new residential neighborhoods were becoming less walkable, with fewer stores, in both zoned and unzoned municipalities. Using variation in the restrictiveness of zoning assigned to undeveloped land, we estimate suburban zoning’s impact over the long run. Neighborhoods zoned more flexibly in the past have 16% more land used for apartments and 14% more land used for commercial uses today. Zoning substantially increased the prevalence of single-family residential neighborhoods relative to the suburban form that would have prevailed without such regulation, which would have featured more mixed uses and smaller lots.
Allison Shertzer is an economic advisor and economist in the Research Department at the Philadelphia Fed. Allison’s research focuses on the economic development of American cities and the connection between a city’s history and present-day economic opportunity. Allison’s work explores how past decisions about land use and infrastructure have shaped cities today. She is interested in housing affordability and migration, particularly how to make economic opportunity more widely available. Allison is passionate about delving into archives and visualizing the history of cities through map digitization, a tool that can help everyone — from students to journalists to policymakers — better understand the development of U.S. cities. In the past, she used this type of historical digitization to study redlining, segregation, and zoning. Before joining the Bank in 2023, Allison was an associate professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh, having started there as an assistant professor of economics in 2011. Allison was previously a faculty research fellow with the National Bureau of Economic Research from 2012 to 2019 and then became a research associate. Allison has a Ph.D. and an M.A. in economics from UCLA, as well as a B.S. in industrial engineering and a B.A. in mathematics from Arizona State University.