Zoned Out!: Race, Displacement and City Planning in New York City

New York City does not comprehensively plan for the future. Instead its Department of City Planning depends on zoning, a tool to regulate and promote development. In practice, zoning and housing policy has protected segregated neighborhoods and facilitated the displacement of low-income communities of color. The city’s “affordable housing” is not truly affordable to those who need it. This book includes case studies of Williamsburg, Harlem and Chinatown, neighborhoods where rezonings reproduced historic patterns of racial discrimination and separation. It shows how race has mattered throughout the city’s history, starting with the days of European settlement and slavery, through redlining, urban renewal, the fiscal crisis of the 1970s and beyond. Zoned Out! leaves us with strategies to address inequalities, promote authentic community-based and city-wide planning, and develop housing in the public domain.