Wealth, homeownership, and land use regulatory changes

This paper examines patterns of land use regulatory changes in Santiago, Chile, focusing on downzoning (stricter regulations) and upzoning (more flexible regulations), and their associations with sociodemographic factors. We analyze an original georeferenced dataset covering all 34 urban municipalities of Santiago over 20 years, together with 19 semi-structured interviews with key actors. The quantitative analysis suggests that high-income neighborhoods are associated with a greater likelihood of downzoning when homeownership is comparatively low. With our block-level measure of wealth, however, this association is not statistically distinguishable from zero at the sample-average homeownership rate and becomes negative at higher rates. Therefore, in affluent neighborhoods, the significant presence of homeowners is associated with less probability of downzoning. Outside high-income neighborhoods, higher homeownership is instead associated with downzoning. Qualitative evidence points to the growing role of organized residents, with socially connected groups using participatory reforms and informal ties to municipal decision-makers to shape local regulatory debates. This positive association is absent when the analysis is restricted to large-scale zoning changes. The findings contribute to debates between the “growth machine” and “homevoter” theories by suggesting that the relevance of each framework may vary across patterns of social segmentation and local demographic structures.