The Density of the American Dream: How City Plans Justify Residential Density Decisions

• In Event: 1565 - Implementing Racial Inequality in Urban Policy

Abstract

Zoning of residential density and dwelling type is a primary tool at the disposal of city planning to shape the residential contours of city. Recently, density zoning has gained attention in conversations about affordable housing. There is not, however, a straightforward relationship between density and housing costs. Both low and high residential densities are intertwined with different capital accumulation strategies federally and locally (which do not aim to nor succeed at providing adequate affordable housing). For this reason, the discourse about density in city planning documents provide insight into the ways that cities align with or deviate from national accumulation regimes, an issue that is debated in urban studies. Using content analysis, I investigate the density discourses of comprehensive city plans of ten mid-size Midwestern municipalities. Discourse that decoupled high density from low-income, co-occur with normative depictions of low density, single-unit housing neighborhoods segregated from higher density dwelling types. Notably absent were discussion about the market of high density ownership and discussion of low-density as race- and income-exclusive. These findings are a vital step in piecing together the larger picture of whether some cities create their own hegemonies that deviate from prevailing accumulation regimes that promote business profits and economic growth, even while a lack of adequate housing persists.

Author

• Adrianne Showalter Matlock, University of Kansas