---
title: "Zoning reform and the homes that get built (research idea)"
description: "Housing supply, land use regulation and upzoning appear on 48 recent papers in the economics journals. Cities from Auckland to Minneapolis and states from California to Oregon have loosened zoning in the last decade. How many extra homes did the reforms produce, where, and did rents respond?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/zoning-reform-and-housing-supply
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/zoning-reform-and-housing-supply.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "Zoning reform and the homes that get built (research idea): Housing supply, land use regulation and upzoning appear on 48 recent papers in the economics journals."
date: "2026-10-23"
updated: "2026-10-23"
status: "seed"
tags: ["economics", "housing", "cities"]
keywords: ["housing supply", "land use regulation", "upzoning"]
---

# Zoning reform and the homes that get built

Housing supply, land use regulation and upzoning appear on 48 recent papers in the economics journals. Cities from Auckland to Minneapolis and states from California to Oregon have loosened zoning in the last decade. How many extra homes did the reforms produce, where, and did rents respond?

## What prompted this

Since October 2025, 48 papers carry a zoning, land-use-regulation, housing-supply, building-regulation or upzoning keyword (37 in economics journals): "housing supply" on 19, "land use regulation" on 12, "upzoning" on 7, "building regulations" on 7. Housing prices appear on 123 papers, so the demand side is far better covered than the supply rules.

## Questions

- After upzoning, how much of the new building is on the rezoned parcels, and how long before permits turn into completed homes?
- Do rents fall in the rezoned neighbourhoods, in the city as a whole, or neither within five years?
- Which reforms worked: allowing more units per lot, cutting parking requirements, speeding approvals, or taxing undeveloped land?

## Data that could help

Parcel-level zoning maps before and after reforms, building permits and completions, rents from listing data, and the dates of reforms.

## Next step

Compare completions on upzoned and non-upzoned parcels in Auckland and Minneapolis in the years after their reforms.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| housing supply | 0 | – | 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 1, 3, 0, 2, 3, 2, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 0 | 37 |
| land use regulation | 0 | – | 1, 1, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 3, 0, 1, 0, 2, 1, 1, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0 | 25 |
| upzoning | 0 | – | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 0, 3, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 | 14 |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Zoning reform and the homes that get built. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/zoning-reform-and-housing-supply

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-zoning-reform-and-housing-supply,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Zoning reform and the homes that get built},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/zoning-reform-and-housing-supply}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).