Regionalism, Home Rule, and Fair Housing: Assessing the Barriers to Fair Housing in Fragmented Metropolises

Keywords: Fair Housing, Regionalism, Urban Planning
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 45

Abstract

Access to affordable housing is recognized as a regional issue; however, the solutions to fair and / or affordable housing are often undertaken by individual jurisdictions with limited coordination at the regional scale. This contributes to an imbalance of access to affordable housing, with low cost housing concentrated in the inner city and inner ring suburbs. This is often exacerbated by suburban land use policies and practices (such as large lot zoning) that minimizes opportunity for lower cost housing construction.

Using data from the 2020 Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing done for Erie County, the City of Buffalo, and other jurisdictions, this research explores how the fragmented nature of regional governance affects access to fair and / or affordable housing. The most recent AI identifies key policies that have reduced accessibility to fair and / or affordable housing in suburban communities in Erie County, and a review of past AIs show those impediments have not been addressed over time. This research will show that addressing affordable housing in a meaningful way requires coordination across jurisdictions and a regional approach to ensure fair and / or affordable housing is being provided where it is needed and not simply isolated in the urban core and older, inner ring suburbs.