2026/04/24 by Aaron Berman Fernandez · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Housing Market and Economics #Urban Planning and Governance #Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
paper · doi:10.31235/osf.io/64tvz_v1
openalex publication_date 2026/04/24 · openalex created_date 2026/04/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
Debates over housing supply, from NIMBY opposition to YIMBY advocacy, have focused largely on the economic consequences of permitting new housing, but their broader social effects remain underexplored. This article examines whether housing development shapes racial residential segregation. Using panel data on U.S. metropolitan areas from 1990 to 2020, I show that metros permitting more housing experienced larger declines in Black–White segregation. An instrumental variable strategy exploiting geologic constraints on buildability strengthens causal interpretation, and place-level analyses demonstrate that this relationship also holds for towns within metropolitan areas. I further assess several proposed mechanisms, including housing costs, residential mobility, and the location and type of new development, finding no single pathway fully explains the association. Together, these results suggest that housing supply operates as a macro-institutional condition that structures residential sorting. The findings position housing development not only as an economic outcome, but as a consequential social process shaping patterns of racial inequality.