Zoning as a barrier to entering the economy
In the 2019 episode on libertarian anti-poverty policy, Michael Tanner, discussing his book The Inclusive Economy: How to Bring Wealth to America’s Poor, placed zoning among the state and local policies that impair the poor from joining the workforce. He noted that while the federal government operates more than 100 anti-poverty programs overseen by nine cabinet departments and six independent agencies, many of the problems affecting the poor are at the state and local level. Among these he listed zoning laws that prevent the building of affordable housing and land-use laws that drive up the cost of rent for poor people in many areas, alongside police forces, school systems, and licensing boards Libertarian Anti-Poverty Policy (2019).
Bob Zadek framed the broader pattern: these are government programs with goals unrelated to poverty that have as a direct byproduct the effect of making it harder for individuals to work out of poverty. He asked Tanner to explain how occupational licensing, as one example, prevents people from working their way out of poverty. Tanner’s answer concerned Louisiana’s requirement to obtain a license to be a beautician or cosmetologist — a lengthy course, a textbook, instruction fees, a test given only twice a year and only in Monroe, Louisiana, a two-day test with a fee, and questions on subjects such as chemistry. A poor single mother who fails the test must wait six months and repeat the process. Tanner described such requirements as designed to protect the monopolies of those in the profession and to keep out competition, and said they have a long and racist history Libertarian Anti-Poverty Policy (2019).
Later in the same episode, Tanner returned to zoning in the context of guilt and evasion. He said spending money on the poor is used as a way to paper over guilt at not fixing the real problem — that we do not have to worry about police abuse, about the privilege that we use to keep poor people out of our neighborhoods through zoning laws, or about protecting the teachers’ unions at the expense of educating poor children, because welfare programs are given instead Libertarian Anti-Poverty Policy (2019).
Intent versus result
In the 2020 episode on a libertarian theory of anti-racism, Tanner distinguished intent from result in evaluating policy. He said that having the intent to harm somebody is more evil than doing it by accident, and that the law acknowledges intent matters, but that from the point of view of the person on the receiving end it does not matter whether the car ran over you by accident or whether somebody aimed at you. Bob Zadek offered Jim Crow laws in the South as an example of intentional racist laws, then asked for an example of a law not obviously intended to punish one race but having that effect Towards a Libertarian Theory of Anti-Racism (2020).
Tanner gave zoning laws. He said that in the 1950s housing was explicitly segregated, citing Levittown, the famous first suburban community, whose deed explicitly stated that no person of color could live in that community, and said many communities created in California and elsewhere were explicitly segregated. Those laws against blacks living in suburban communities have long since been thrown out, he said, and the Fair Housing Act and other laws have made such covenants unenforceable where they still exist. But zoning laws now operate differently: people got in with government help, a government explicitly blocking African Americans from loan programs; they bought houses; their kids and grandkids now live in those houses, whose property values have gone up because of the passage of time and because of the type of zoning that has limited supply. African Americans now simply cannot afford to move into those suburbs. Tanner’s conclusion was that huge racial segregation in housing persists, no longer done because of an explicitly racial motive: it is a neutral law in terms of zoning, but it still has the same impact of perpetuating the segregation in housing that used to go on Towards a Libertarian Theory of Anti-Racism (2020).
Property rights, Houston, and the taxi medallion analogy
The 2023 episode with Christian Britschgi, on building and land use, treated zoning as a question of whose preferences govern land. Bob Zadek posed the question of whether the conversation is now not zoning per se but whether the scale has been tipped too much toward open space and not enough toward housing cost. He also advanced, as devil’s advocate, the argument that California’s overuse of zoning is itself market forces through foot voting — those who find the state too expensive move, and those who stay accept the tradeoff of taxes for benefits Free to Build (2023).
Britschgi rejected that framing. He said he would not consider it market forces at all, that almost any government restriction could be justified that way by saying if you do not like it you can leave, and that people’s ability to leave California is a safety valve but still involves them doing something they would not otherwise do but for government regulation. He added that decisions are made by people who are already there, while people who would prefer less restrictive rules producing less expensive housing do not live there and cannot afford to, so they get no say — it is not the same measurement of preferences as a market with fewer restrictions Free to Build (2023).
On open space, Britschgi declined to ask anyone to take his