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Working Paper
Zoning and the American Suburb
American suburbs are generally characterized by single-family neighborhoods featuring large lots, with few businesses or apartments. To understand the origins of this pattern of development, we construct the first panel dataset of suburban zoning maps and bylaws for a major American metropolitan area and ask how comprehensive land use regulation shaped the form of the suburbs of Chicago today. Our strategy identifies the impact of zoning using land that was undeveloped before such regulations were adopted. The typical post-zoning suburban neighborhood sets aside over 90 percent of land for ...