The invisible laws that led to America's housing crisis | CNN Business

Zoning laws, at their most basic, follow a simple concept. In one part of town, only factories can be built. In another section of town, only apartment buildings can be built. And in a different part of town, only single-family houses can be built. Single-family zoning laws are unknown to most Americans, but they were instrumental to the expansion of urban areas and the suburban ideal of owning a home with a front porch and backyard on a half-acre plot of land post-World War II.

” And before their introduction in the 1910s, there were few broad laws about where things could be built, in general. Homes would go up next to factories. An apartment building could be built in the middle of a downtown commercial strip. But single-family zoning laws spread to protect homeowners in residential areas from new industrial developments like warehouses, according to economic historians. In 1916, eight cities had zoning laws.

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