Municipal zoning practices profoundly shape urban life in the United States. In regions such as Silicon Valley, regulatory barriers to residential construction have helped raise house prices to roughly ten times the national median. These astronomic prices have prompted some households to move...

Commentators rightly decry the excessive segregation of American neighborhoods by race and social class. If all demographic groups were randomly distributed throughout a metropolitan area, however, there would be great diversity within each neighborhood, but no diversity among them. There is...