Local control of land-use regulation creates a not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) problem that can suppress housing construction, contributing to rising prices and potentially slowing economic growth. I study how increased local control affects housing production by exploiting a common electoral reform—changing from “at-large” to “ward” elections for town council. These reforms, which are not typically motivated by housing markets, shrink each representative’s constituency from the entire town to one ward. Results from a variety of difference-in-differences estimators show that this decentralization decreases housing units permitted by 20%, with similar effects on multi- and single-family permits. Effects are larger in whiter and higher-income towns.

Since 1970, the share of Black individuals living in suburbs of large cities has risen from 16% to 36%. We first show that Black suburbanization has led to major changes in neighborhoods, accounting for the majority of recent increases in both the average Black individual’s neighborhood quality and income segregation within the Black population. We then use an accounting exercise to show that changes in relative suburban amenities and housing prices explain a large share of Black suburbanization, while regional reallocation, changing educational attainment, and gentrification of Black city neighborhoods play only minor roles.

We study the local effects of new market-rate housing in low-income areas using microdata on large apartment buildings, rents, and migration. New buildings decrease rents in nearby units by about 6% relative to units slightly farther away or near sites developed later, and they increase in-migration from low-income areas. We show that new buildings absorb many high-income households and increase the local housing stock substantially. If buildings improve nearby amenities, the effect is not large enough to increase rents. Amenity improvements could be limited because most buildings go into already-changing neighborhoods or buildings could create disamenities such as congestion.