Wendell Pritchett & Shitong Qiao on Exclusionary Megacities (Southern California L Rev)

"Exclusionary Megacities"
Wendell Pritchett & Shitong Qiao
Southern California Law Review
March 2018, Vol. 91, Issue 3, pp. 467-522

Abstract: Human beings should live in places where they are most productive, and megacities, where information, innovation, and opportunities congregate, would be the optimal choice. Yet megacities in both China and the United States are excluding people by limiting the housing supply. Why, despite their many differences, is the same type of exclusion happening in both Chinese and U.S. megacities? Urban law and policy scholars argue that Not-In-My-Back-Yard (“NIMBY”) homeowners are taking over megacities in the U.S. and hindering housing development. They pin their hopes on an efficient growth machine that makes sure “above all, nothing gets in the way of building.” Yet the growth-dominated megacities of China demonstrate that relying on business and political elites to provide affordable housing is a false hope. Our comparative study of the homeowner-dominated megacities of the U.S. and growth-dominated megacities of China demonstrates that the origin of exclusionary megacities is not a choice between growth elites and homeowners, but the exclusionary nature of property rights. Our study reveals that megacities in the two countries share a property-centered approach, which prioritizes the maximization of existing property interests and neglects the interests of the ultimate consumersof housing, resulting in housing that is unaffordable. Giving housing consumers a voice in land use control and urban governance becomes the last resort to counteract this result. This comparative study shows that the conventional triangular framework of land use—comprising government, developers, and homeowners—is incomplete, and argues for a citizenship-based approach to urban governance.  Click here to read the full article.

Shitong Qiao on Dealing with Illegal Housing: What Can New York City Learn from Shenzhen (Fordham Urban LJ)

"Dealing with Illegal Housing: What Can New York City Learn from Shenzhen?"

Shitong Qiao

Fordham Urban Law Journal

2016, Vol. 43, Issue 3, pp. 743-769

Abstract: In New York City, owners violated zoning regulations and opened up their basements, garages, and other floors to rent to people (particularly low-income immigrants) priced out of the formal market. The more than 100,000 illegal dwelling units in New York City (NYC) were referred to as “granny units,” “illegal twos or threes,” or “accessory units.” Due to the safety and habitability considerations of “alter[ing] or modif[ying] of an existing building to create an additional housing unit without first obtaining approval from the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB),” the City government devoted a lot of resources to detecting and stopping such illegal conversion. Recently, however, Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed to legalize such illegal dwelling units to increase the City’s rent-regulated housing stock. The question remains as to whether crackdown or legalization is the right policy. Such illegal housing is not unique to NYC. Shenzhen, a city in south China that experienced a population explosion from 300,000 to over 10 million within three decades, faces the same problem as NYC: legal housing supply cannot catch up with the population growth, resulting in prevalent illegal housing supply. Almost half of Shenzhen’s buildings have been built illegally and now host over eight million migrant workers and low-income residents. In the past three decades, the Shenzhen city government has swung between legalization and crackdown of such illegal buildings, neither of which has resolved the problem. Due to the large number of illegal apartments, the “crackdown” option has proven to be impossible, while legalization has incurred huge information costs and encouraged more illegal constructions. In more recent years, though, the Shenzhen city government has discovered an effective policy: Keeping the city government’s zoning power intact while granting an option to owners of illegal housing to buy an exemption. The lesson from Shenzhen is that options matter at least as much as the allocation of initial entitlements. In the case of prevalent zoning violations, these options should be granted to parties that have the best information to make decisions — the numerous individual owners rather than the government. I propose that this optional zoning approach should be taken in dealing with illegal housing in New York City.  Click here to download the full article.