For the past several years, scholars and advocates have been sounding the alarm about local land use and zoning laws unduly restricting critical development. In response to what some describe as outsized influence of neighbors, progressive advocates have been calling for state deregulation of local land use laws to make way for housing density, renewable energy infrastructure, and other necessary uses. But other scholars warn of babies and bathwater, frying pans and fires. They remind us that cities have traditionally been the loci of land use innovation. The debate has new urgency as states around the country debate which level of government is best equipped to tack the affordable housing and climate crises gripping the nation.
