QUIET REVOLUTION FOR WHOM?∗

Abstract

Land use control reform has been a staple of liberal thought in the U.S. over the last two decades. The need to accommodate larger developments and to secure state or regional review of local government decisions is now widely accepted as inevitable, rational, and in the public interest. This opinion did not gain its popularity by chance, however; it has been promoted vigorously by a small group of people closely associated with large developers and the business-backed regional planning movement. The reforms they advocate are best understood in terms of the obstacles presented to capital accumulation by three historical changes. First, increases in the scale and changes in the design of residential projects after World War II made prewar zoning practices obsolete. Second, popular movements began to oppose unrestricted urban growth in the 1960s. Third, the postwar property boom of 1968–1973 gave way to recession. Moreover, contrary to the reformers' claims, large-scale residential developments are not demonstrably more efficient, equitable or environmentally sound than small ones. Similarly, state or regional intervention is, depending on political forces, as likely to suppress popular democracy and valid public goals as to serve them.

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