Reflections on Minneapolis, New York, Race, Policing, and Zoning - Part 3 of 3

The following is a guest post by Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

Part 3: Policing, Race, and Minneapolis’s Single-Family Zoning Reform

Desirable reforms to the culture and economy of policing will not on their own overcome the disparities that are key to the tale of two cities, disparities that reflect the economic and social devaluing of people of color. The two cities trope at its core calls attention to a need to place institutions associated with property at the center of how we think about policing and race.

Perhaps the most consequential reform that Minneapolis has recently undertaken is one that does not relate to policing at all, but holds out the promise of fundamental change. Last year, the city finalized historic steps to abolish single-family zoning, the residential land-use classification enshrined in Village of Euclid that suppresses the diversity and affordability of housing within large swaths of cities, perpetuates class- and race-based exclusion in access to housing and neighborhoods, and, in adding obstacles to home ownership, limits the opportunities that rising property values afford to accumulate intergenerational household wealth. The measure was adopted to increase affordable housing options and acknowledge the city’s racially exclusionary history limiting access to single-family home ownership. Reflecting the goals of Minneapolis 2040, the city’s comprehensive plan, the zoning revision was not a symbolic gesture, but designed to break down economic barriers and make home ownership more accessible. 

Bringing together the metaphorical cities within a city, in Minneapolis, New York, and cities throughout the U.S., will be challenging; it calls for urban communities to reflect on the persisting failure of institutions, and the individuals who comprise them, to draw lessons from experience, and engage in the kind of critical examination that is key to any hope for root-and-branch change. Reimagining police departments is only one part of that project because policing follows larger societal patterns in the way communities are seen and valued. Rewriting the tale of two cities will need the commitment of a Minneapolis 2040 to “undo barriers and overcome inequities created by a history of policies . . . that have prevented equitable access to housing, jobs, and investments.” It involves dismantling structures and institutions such as single-family zoning that have perpetuated material inequality and segregated people of color. This kind of equity-driven, economically-based institutional change seems essential for measures reforming police culture to have a meaningful chance of succeeding.