Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don't See.by Richard D Kahlenberg. JPublicAffairs, 2023. 352 pages. Hardcover, $35.00.
This is an indictment of America's housing policy that reveals the social engineering underlying our segregation by economic class, the social and political fallout that result, and what we can do about it. Kahlenberg integrates quantitative and qualitative evidence to illuminate one of the central controversies in contemporary America: how to reconcile the tension between class and race. He shows how ‘snob zoning’ leads to segregation by both race and class and thus blocks opportunity for all Americans.
While the American meritocracy officially denounces prejudice based on race and gender, it has spawned a new form of bias against those with less education and income. Millions of working-class Americans have their opportunity blocked by exclusionary snob zoning. These government policies make housing unaffordable, frustrate the goals of the civil rights movement, and lock in inequality in our urban and suburban landscapes.
Through accounts of families excluded from economic and social opportunity as they are victimized through “new redlining” that limits the type of housing that can be built, Kahlenberg illustrates why America has a housing crisis. He also illustrates why economic segregation matters since where you live affects access to transportation, employment opportunities, decent health care, and good schools. He shows that astonishingly the most restrictive zoning is found in politically liberal cities where racial views are more progressive. Despite this there is hope. Kahlenberg tells the inspiring stories of growing number of local and national movements working to tear down the walls that inflicts so much damage on the lives of millions of Americans.
