What is Zoning?
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Zoning is a set of legal tools created by a city or local government to determine how land can be used and what can be built on it.
There are three main types of zoning rules: zoning districts and maps, zoning codes, and zoning standards. *Click on the tabs for more information. |
Districts & Maps
CodesThe set of laws that define the scope of a city’s authority to restrict certain land uses and buildings
StandardsThe legal processes and procedures to determine if developments meet a municipality's land use and building restrictions set by their zoning codes.
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Why Do Cities Use Zoning?
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Resident Safety and Wellbeing Cities attempt to assure their resident's safety and general wellbeing - or the ability to meet their basic needs - through zoning laws. Cities do this by enacting zoning laws that prevent waste and industrial sites from being next to residences and rules that seek to prevent overcrowding. |
Resident Prosperity Another reason cities use zoning is to increase resident's abilities to grow beyond just meeting their basic needs. This includes property growth, industrial and housing development, economic opportunities, and amenity access. |
Resident Equity While often not explicitly stated in zoning laws, equity is an underlying desire of cities for their residents. Equity - or the ability to access the tools, resources, and processes available for people to secure their wellbeing and prosper - is a important and often overlooked piece of zoning laws. |
What Happens Instead...
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Zoning maps, codes, and procedures often determine what types of housing and commercial buildings can be built. They define laws that determine what types of resources - like parks, grocery stores, and schools - are in or near residential neighborhoods. This has drastic impacts on housing affordability, disability accessibility, transportation access, and a host of other aspects of residential life. |
A privileged few are able to prosper, while the costs of prosperity are forced onto the poor and the marginalized. This is due to limits on mixed-used zoning districts and increases in housing cost burden from inefficient processes and standards. |
The legacy of redlining and descrimination still have strong effects in our modern day. There are practices and standards which still disenfranchise marginalized people and communities that must be addressed for zoning to be equitable. |
History in Focus: Finding A Path Forward
for Zoning Reform
for Zoning Reform
Black Migration & White Discrimination
To better understand how zoning came to be a barrier for affordable housing developments, it is important to understand the history of how zoning has been used to differentiate, segregate, and outprice people with low incomes, people of color, and people with disabilities.
During the late 1800s to the 1940s, Black families were moving from the south to evade racial violence and discrimination during the era of Jim Crow laws, with Evanston seeing a significant increase from just 125 Black residents in 1880 to 1,100 by 1910, dispersed all throughout Evanston. By 1940, that number had increased to over 6,000. At the same time, race-based zoning policies controlling where certain races could live had begun to spread across the United States. Despite the 1917 Supreme Court ruling that race-based zoning was unconstitutional, in 1921 the City of Evanston passed a zoning code that converted Black residential neighborhoods into commercial use-only zones throughout the city, except for a triangular section of land surrounding the railroads. This forced Black families, who lost their housing due to the zoning changes, to move to that triangular section of land. By 1940, 84% of Black Evanston residents lived within that single neighborhood, now encompassing most of Evanston’s 5th Ward.
To better understand how zoning came to be a barrier for affordable housing developments, it is important to understand the history of how zoning has been used to differentiate, segregate, and outprice people with low incomes, people of color, and people with disabilities.
During the late 1800s to the 1940s, Black families were moving from the south to evade racial violence and discrimination during the era of Jim Crow laws, with Evanston seeing a significant increase from just 125 Black residents in 1880 to 1,100 by 1910, dispersed all throughout Evanston. By 1940, that number had increased to over 6,000. At the same time, race-based zoning policies controlling where certain races could live had begun to spread across the United States. Despite the 1917 Supreme Court ruling that race-based zoning was unconstitutional, in 1921 the City of Evanston passed a zoning code that converted Black residential neighborhoods into commercial use-only zones throughout the city, except for a triangular section of land surrounding the railroads. This forced Black families, who lost their housing due to the zoning changes, to move to that triangular section of land. By 1940, 84% of Black Evanston residents lived within that single neighborhood, now encompassing most of Evanston’s 5th Ward.
Redlining: The Blueprint for Inequitable Zoning
Image Above shows the Evanston redlined zone established in the 1930s
With the Black population concentrated into majority Black neighborhoods, segregation and discrimination in Evanston and across the U.S. gained even more credibility in the mid-1900s through the creation of a federal practice known as “redlining.” The Home Owners Loan Association (HOLC), a federal agency born as part of the New Deal, prepared maps of over 200 cities in the U.S. showing the risk associated with making mortgage loans in different neighborhoods. Their process for creating these maps included factors such as the racial and ethnic makeup of neighborhoods and the general quality of the neighborhoods’ housing. Areas deemed “homogenous” and therefore desirable, were shaded in green, while areas deemed as being “undesirable” were shaded in red. These red designations, as one can imagine, typically fell over majority Black neighborhoods.
HOLC’s map for Evanston marked the segregated majority- Black triangular region as red – undesirable – calling it, “somewhat better than the average negro district… a serious problem for the town as they seem to be growing steadily and encroaching into adjoining neighborhoods.” (1939 HOLC Map). Households in these red areas were prohibited from receiving federal Fair Housing Act loans and mortgages. In Evanston, banks refused loans for building or maintaining Black households in neighborhoods outside of the redlined zone. White homeowners formed racial covenants which prohibited Black residents from moving into white neighborhoods, with one association’s goal being “to preserve [the neighborhood] as a place for white people to live.” (Evanston Roundtable).
HOLC’s map for Evanston marked the segregated majority- Black triangular region as red – undesirable – calling it, “somewhat better than the average negro district… a serious problem for the town as they seem to be growing steadily and encroaching into adjoining neighborhoods.” (1939 HOLC Map). Households in these red areas were prohibited from receiving federal Fair Housing Act loans and mortgages. In Evanston, banks refused loans for building or maintaining Black households in neighborhoods outside of the redlined zone. White homeowners formed racial covenants which prohibited Black residents from moving into white neighborhoods, with one association’s goal being “to preserve [the neighborhood] as a place for white people to live.” (Evanston Roundtable).
Past Decisions; Current Trends
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Practices that targeted Black residents had drastic impacts across the country that still resonate in the modern day. Research shows that 74% of the neighborhoods that were deemed hazardous by the HOLC are low-to-moderate income today; around 64% today are minority neighborhoods. Further, by severely limiting the supply of housing stock, reducing economic opportunity and investment, and dismantling Black residential neighborhoods in place of commercial-only districts, municipalities like Evanston are today reeling from the loss in economic growth, community building, and social safety nets that could have served their residents for generations.
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A Path Forward to Equitable Zoning: Envision Evanston 2045
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The City of Evanston is currently undergoing a revision of its Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Codes through a process known as Envision Evanston 2045. This process provides our community with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address housing inequity by remaking the city’s comprehensive plan and zoning code for the future.
Working with community partners, we have also conducted an extensive survey of Evanston residents, including those whose interests are often left out of zoning considerations. These surveys confirm that people with low income, people of color, and people with disabilities struggle to find and keep affordable housing in Evanston. For a comprehensive report on this effort, please see our “Equitable Zoning Project Report”. |
“Fair access to housing goes beyond the ability for any resident, regardless of income, to afford the mortgage or rent payments required for the available housing in their community, It also considers the ability of residents to live near their place of employment, schools, and services, in their preferred housing and ownership type, and in communities with a shared culture or identity if they so choose.” |
We welcome any and all advocates for equitable zoning reform to join with us so together we can advance the project of making Evanston a model of zoning built for the 21st century. Reshaping zoning laws in communities across the country is crucial to solving our national housing crisis.
Ready to take action? Learn More about zoning reform and join the campaign for change in Evanston by clicking on the link below!
