Jurisdictional Fragmentation and Housing Outcomes Bryan Grady, Research Analyst Office of Affordable Housing Research and Strategic Planning Ohio Housing Finance Agency

Disclaimer Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone and should not be construed as official policy positions or conclusions of the State of Ohio or the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. This material is derived from my dissertation research at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University and was supported by a fellowship from the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy. Portions of this research were developed in partnership with Judd Schechtman, also a Rutgers doctoral candidate.

Fragmentation in Ohio Government Type Count Counties 88 Municipalities 937 Townships 1,308 School Districts 668 Special Districts 841 GRAND TOTAL 3,843 Columbus is the only major city in Ohio with “elasticity” (Rusk 2013), meaning that the central city has expanded spatially along with its region Others are “boxed in,” with aging, inferior housing stock and numerous legacy costs; real estate market becomes very polarized (Orfield 1997) To give you some comparison: California: 4,425 Florida: 1,650 Source: 2012 US Census of Governments

Okay, so what? Having numerous municipalities in a region means every community can pursue its own land use and zoning policy Affluent areas can pick the most fiscally desirable land uses (e.g. high-end homes for empty nesters) and offload the rest Affordable housing, esp. for families, becomes concentrated in the poorest communities, amplifying existing inequalities More inclusive cities can plan comprehensively, spreading the fiscal impacts across a larger, more representative population

What are the implications? Diversion of funds from redistributive social programs toward intraregional economic development incentives (Basolo 2000) Inefficient provision of housing choice vouchers, i.e. Section 8, within a metropolitan area (Katz and Turner 2001) More severe policies toward vice crimes (Sharp 2004) and minor civil violations (Balko 2014) Ultimately, if unchecked, “anti-government” (Weiher 1991)

Methodology OLS regression models specified to estimate residential segregation and sprawl with respect to fragmentation Segregation represented by dissimilarity indices for Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics at the Census tract level, computed by Univ. of Michigan Population Studies Center Sprawl measured by Ewing et al. (2014): development density, land use mix, activity centering, and street accessibility Fragmentation evaluated in terms of number of governments per capita and Metropolitan Power Diffusion Index (Miller 2012)

MPDI Map Source: http://diversitydata.org/Data/Maps/Show.aspx?ind=154 Notes: Only the 100 largest MSAs are shown. Figures are from 2002.

Key results Fragmentation found to be strongly correlated with segregation of African-American households, but not Asians or Hispanics; disparities may be due to historical factors, settlement patterns Residential density, positively correlated with MPDI in isolation, is negatively correlated if control variables are added to model; this aligns with existing literature (e.g. Levine 2005) on the prevalence and impact of local exclusionary zoning policies

References Balko, Radley. “How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty.” Washington Post, September 3, 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis- county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/. Basolo, Victoria. “City Spending on Economic Development versus Affordable Housing: Does Inter- City Competition or Local Politics Drive Decisions?” Journal of Urban Affairs 22:3 (2000), 317-332. Ewing, Reid et al. (2014). http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/measuring-sprawl. Katz, Bruce and Margery Austin Turner. “Who Should Run the Housing Voucher Program? A Reform Proposal.” Housing Policy Debate 12:2 (2001), 239-262. Levine, Jonathan. Zoned Out. Resources for the Future Press: Washington, 2005. Miller, David et al. (2012). http://www.metrostudies.pitt.edu/Projects/MetropolitanPower Diffusion Index/tabid/1321/Default.aspx. Orfield, Myron. Metropolitics. Brookings Institution Press: Washington, 1997. Rusk, David. Cities without Suburbs. Wilson Center Press: Washington, 2013. Sharp, Elaine. “Metropolitan Structure and the Sex Business.” From Metropolitan Governance: Conflict, Competition & Cooperation by Richard Feiock (ed.), Chapter 8. Georgetown Press: Washington, 2004. Weiher, Gregory. Fractured Metropolis: Political Fragmentation and Metropolitan Segregation. SUNY Press: Albany, 1991.