Understanding upzoning’s role in neighborhood change: Evidence from New York City

• In Event: Dilemmas of Development: Challenges to Achieving Affordability Among Housing Suppliers and Local Governments

Abstract

In response to the negative history of restrictive zoning (Pendall 2000; Rothstein 2017; Rothwell and Massey 2009, 2010), policymakers have begun to enact zoning reforms that loosen regulatory constraints on housing development. Underpinning these reforms is basic supply and demand logic, where more housing would make an area more affordable and would therefore allow current residents to remain and attract a racially and economically diverse group of new residents. However, upzoning may not promote affordability and instead may be closely tied to gentrification due to an influx of investment and amenity effects (Davis 2021; Kim and Lee 2024; Whittemore 2021). In addition to its relation to gentrification, recent work using individual-level migration data shows that upzoning is associated with an increase in out-migration from upzoned areas in New York City (Davis, Song, and Chapple 2026; Liao 2026; Peng 2023); however, the timing of these migration changes and the processes that underpin them remain unclear. In this paper, I examine the timing of this increased out-migration in relation to rezoning initiatives. In my initial analysis, similar to prior work, I find an increase in out-migration from upzoned areas in New York City. However, I also find that the likelihood of residents moving out of upzoned areas increased in the years leading up to the implementation of an upzoning initiative, suggesting that these neighborhoods may have already been changing. Based on this finding, in this paper, I look to better understand what explains this pre-upzoning mobility. More specifically, I address the following two research questions: (1) Do out-migration rates from upzoned areas differ by neighborhood trajectory? (2) Does the timing of increased out-migration from upzoned areas differ by neighborhood trajectory? To address these questions, I examine out-migration by different neighborhood demographics trajectories and potential housing market push factors before upzoning implementation to better understand the sequencing of these changes. Upzoning reforms may follow the early stages of neighborhood change and may not directly cause an increase in residential mobility, but instead, be an indicator of increased neighborhood desirability among developers and business interests. To do so, I use parcel-level property and land-use data from the Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output (PLUTO) data from the New York City Department of City Planning. I combine this data with residential history data from Infutor Data Solutions, which includes full residential histories for individuals living in New York City and neighborhood-level demographic data from the American Community Survey (ACS). I examine several dimensions of neighborhood change or trajectories that are related to gentrification and could influence out-migration, including demographic changes (e.g., share of racial and ethnic groups, share of college-educated residents, median household income) and housing market conditions (e.g., median rent, vacancy rates). I combine these different dimensions into distinct neighborhood trajectories to better understand if upzoning reforms are facilitating or responding to neighborhood change.

Author

• Laura R Sullivan, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author