Enhanced Public Participation in Land Use Governance: Does Chicago’s Community-Driven Zoning Block Residential Development?

• In Event: 40821 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 14. Urban Governance I: The Organization of Power

Abstract

A debate on the politics of public participation in land use decisions has been raging between those that blame community input for stymieing dense and affordable residential development—thereby worsening affordability crises and economic and racial segregation—and those that advocate strengthening community control over zoning changes in contexts where residents are vulnerable to displacement. Drawing on an original dataset of zoning changes in Chicago between 2011 and 2023, this paper will provide evidence relevant to this discussion by comparing four wards that implemented an enhanced participation process called Community-Driven Zoning and Development (CDZD) to similar wards that did not. Using a comparative interrupted time series design, it examines the extent to which wards that adopted CDZD saw unique changes in aldermanic support for a series of indicators of dense and affordable residential development. Has enhanced public participation blocked dense and affordable development or has it provided a forum for generating support for such projects? Results and discussion will be complete by early summer 2025.

Author

• Loren Peabody, University of Wisconsin-Madison