Reporting from Collectors Weekly looks at how San Francisco’s early zoning laws led to the high-price, low-density neighborhoods causing the city’s housing crisis today.
The city’s first zoning law, commonly known as the Cubic Air Ordinance, was proposed in 1870 and required boarding houses to offer a minimum amount of space per tenant. While officials claimed this promoted safety and improved residents’ quality of life, it was widely used to target Chinese renters and landlords. Thus began the city’s history of discriminatory ordinances influenced by powerful local interests, the effects of which can still be seen today.
For visitors and locals alike, part of San Francisco’s allure is its seeming incongruity: Victorian houses perch on hills near glass skyscrapers, antique cable cars clank up the same streets where new technologies debut. Few realize how profoundly the city’s physical form has been shaped by its planning department, whose best intentions have been overshadowed by efforts to appease the city’s wealthy, well-connected homeowners.
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