The Historical Housing and Land Use Study, commissioned by the City of Los Angeles and prepared by Architectural Resources Group (ARG), traces the city’s complex history of zoning and land use policies. The Los Angeles Department of City Planning contracted ARG in 2021 as part of the 2021–2029 Housing Element Program 130 to better understand this historical context and ensure that future efforts consider lessons learned and address the intersection of these historic inequities.

The study illustrates how zoning and land use decisions have disproportionately impacted communities of color and contributed to the current housing crisis. Spanning the twentieth century, it examines the intersection of zoning, race, and class and shows how these historical practices continue to shape the city’s housing landscape today.

In the early 1900s, Los Angeles implemented zoning tools such as districting and parking requirements, which were considered innovative at the time. These policies were used to segregate neighborhoods by race and class, promoting single-family housing as the ideal and reinforcing the city’s suburban character. This approach marginalized lower-income households and communities of color, restricting their access to affordable housing and wealth-building opportunities.

Between 1933 and 1964, the New Deal introduced public housing programs that were often segregated, while redlining practices exacerbated inequality by denying Black and Latino neighborhoods access to loans and insurance. Redlining—a discriminatory practice in which banks and the government refused to provide financial services to neighborhoods deemed “high risk” due to their racial composition—excluded these marginalized groups from the benefits of suburban development, leaving them unable to accumulate wealth or invest in their communities via the traditional route of home ownership.

In the postwar period (1945–1964), the push for suburbanization continued, but the benefits of homeownership were not equally available. People of color were largely excluded from these opportunities, even as the civil rights movement gained momentum. The fair housing movement began to challenge discriminatory housing practices, and community-driven planning emerged as a counterforce to exclusionary policies.

From 1964 to 1992, housing policy shifted toward desegregation, but resistance from homeowner advocacy groups and entrenched zoning laws kept many communities of color from gaining access to quality housing. The legacy of exclusion remained, with homeowners and developers pushing to maintain low-density, single-family zoning, which worsened the city’s housing crisis.

After 1992, zoning regulations continued to be shaped by past policies, leaving the housing market unaffordable for many Angelenos, particularly people of color. This legacy of exclusionary zoning contributed to rising costs, overcrowding, and homelessness, disproportionately affecting underrecognized communities.

The Historical Housing and Land Use Study was intended to help ensure the City learned about its role and past inequities to avoid repeating. By documenting how past zoning and land use policies contributed to segregation and displacement, the study highlights both the challenges and resilience of communities of color in their fight for equitable housing. Thanks to media scrutiny and persistence, this important study was finally released to the public to be shared, though too late to be fully acknowledged and integrated into recent public policies establishing land use and zoning priorities for the City in the coming years.

Los Angeles’ housing crisis remains deeply connected to the discriminatory policies that shaped it. The Historical Housing and Land Use Study offers critical insights into how past zoning practices contributed to segregation and inequality, providing a foundation for future planning and policy efforts aimed at creating a more inclusive city. By acknowledging and addressing the history of housing discrimination, Los Angeles can take meaningful steps toward a more equitable housing system that serves all its residents.

The Conservancy awarded the City of Los Angeles Historical Housing and Land Use Study a 2025 Preservation Award.