Manville, Monkkonen, Lens Zero In on Single-Family Zoning

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A new Sidewalk Talk article on Medium highlighted the main points of a paper written by Associate Professors of Urban Planning Michael Manville, Paavo Monkkonen and Michael Lens arguing for the elimination of single-family housing regulations. The three associate professors wrote the essay for the January issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association, which presented nine different arguments about the future of single-family zoning. The debate over single-family zoning has been fueled by new bills in Maryland, Oregon, Minneapolis and California that have proposed loosening single-family regulations, with limited success. In their paper, Manville, Monkkonen and Lens argue that removing single-family zoning doesn’t prevent single-family homes from being built; this means that developers can continue to build them in response to household preference and market demands. However, “in the 21st century, no city should have any land where nothing can be built except a detached single-family home,” they conclude.

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Monkkonen on Southern California’s Task to Build 1.3 Million New Homes

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Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to LAist about Southern California’s commitment to plan 1.3 million new homes by 2029. The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) originally planned to concentrate housing in the Inland Empire rather than in wealthy, coastal communities. Monkkonen said the original methodology, which relied on population projections, rewarded cities that have historically resisted new housing. Without new construction, a city’s population cannot grow; as a result, restrictive zoning in the past led to less zoning for homes in the future. “Cities that don’t want housing were able to project very low growth and get a very low housing number,” Monkkonen said. SCAG ultimately adopted an alternative plan that places more homes near major job centers and transit lines. The state’s housing department will review the plan, which will be finalized next year.

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Monkkonen Research Informs New Model for Affordable Housing

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An opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times juxtaposed a Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) plan to meet housing construction requirements with recommendations from Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy. Gov. Gavin Newsom promised to combat the affordable housing crisis in California with construction of 1.3 million new units of housing. The op-ed, written by the managing director of Abundant Housing L.A., accused the SCAG plan of “disproportionately dumping housing into the sprawling exurbs” while leaving wealthy cities with massive job pools alone. Critics say the SCAG plan will create a housing and jobs imbalance that will lengthen commutes and lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Working with Monkkonen, Abundant Housing L.A. researchers built a different model for distributing housing requirements that minimizes sprawl, prioritizes accessibility to transit and creates affordable housing where people want to live and have opportunities to work, the op-ed said.

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Monkkonen on Affordable Housing for Moderate-Income Angelenos

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Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to Curbed LA about the availability of affordable housing for moderate-income people in Los Angeles. Many residents must pay a burdensome price for shelter yet do not qualify for affordable housing because their annual income surpasses the $56,000 threshold. The Los Angeles City Council voted to examine why there is a shortage of housing options for these people. Monkkonen argued that studying the restraints on moderate-income housing development could lead to city policies that make it easier to develop more housing in the city. He said policymakers and the public believe only certain types of housing need to be built. More housing in general is needed, he said.  “All multifamily housing getting built quicker would help everyone, including middle-income residents,” he says.

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Paavo Monkkonen

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Paavo Monkkonen is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He researches and writes about how policies and markets shape urbanization, social segregation, and housing affordability in cities around the world. His scholarship ranges from studies of large-scale national housing finance programs to analyses of local land use regulations, and uses comparison to derive novel insights. Past projects include studies in Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States.

Professor Monkkonen’s research has been published in outlets such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, the Journal of Urban Economics, Urban Studies, World Development, and the Journal of Peasant Studies. He has received research funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Urban Land Institute, the Regional Studies Association, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He is currently studying the implementation of California’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing law and the social housing system in France.

At UCLA Luskin, Paavo teaches courses on housing policy, land value capture, applied microeconomics, research methods, and global urban segregation. He launched the Latin American Cities Initiative, Ciudades, to develop and deepen knowledge networks among students, educators, and professionals in the arena of urban planning and policy in South, Central, and North America.

Paavo completed a Master of Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He was Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Hong Kong from 2009 to 2012, visiting scholar at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in 2015, visiting researcher at Sciences Po Paris from 2023-2024, and a fellow of the Paris Institute of Advanced Studies from 2024-2025.

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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Meaningful Action: Evaluating Local Government Plans to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing in California. Monkkonen, Paavo, Aaron Barrall, and Aurora Echavarria. 2024. Housing Policy Debate, forthcoming.

Built out cities? A new approach to measuring land use regulation. Monkkonen, Paavo, Michael Manville, and Michael Lens. 2024. Journal of Housing Economics, forthcoming.

Do Land Use Plans Affirmatively Further Fair Housing? Measuring Progress. Monkkonen, Paavo, Michael Lens, Moira O’Neill, Christopher Elmendorf, Greg Preston and Raine Robichaud. 2023. Journal of the American Planning Association, forthcoming.

The Heterogeneous Impacts of Widespread Upzoning: Lessons from Auckland, New Zealand. Cheung, William, and Edward Yiu. 2023. Urban Studies, 61(5), 943-967.

Does Discretion Delay Development? Manville, Michael, Paavo Monkkonen, Shane Phillips, and Nolan Gray. 2022. The Impact of Approval Pathways on Multifamily Housing’s Time to Permit. Journal of the American Planning Association, 89(3): 336-347.

Unwanted Housing: Localism and Politics of Housing Development. Manville, Michael, and Paavo Monkkonen. 2021. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 44(2): 685–700.

Opposition to Development or Opposition to Developers? Experimental Evidence on Attitudes towards New Housing. Monkkonen, Paavo, and Michael Manville. 2019. Journal of Urban Affairs, 41(8): 1123-1141.

Empty Houses across North America: Housing Finance and Mexico’s Vacancy Crisis. Monkkonen, Paavo. 2019. Urban Studies, 57(10): 2080-2097.

Where are property rights worth more? Assessing variation in the value of deeds across cities in Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2016. World Development, 88: 67-78.

Do Strict Land Use Regulations make Metropolitan Areas more Segregated by Income? Michael Lens and Paavo Monkkonen. 2016. Journal of the American Planning Association, 82(1): 6-21.

Land Use Regulations and the Value of Land and Housing: An Intra-Metropolitan Analysis Kok, Nils, Paavo Monkkonen and John M. Quigley. 2014. Journal of Urban Economics, 81(3): 136–148.

Innovative Measurement of Spatial Segregation: Comparative Evidence from Hong Kong and San Francisco. Monkkonen, Paavo and Xiaohu Zhang. 2014. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 47(3): 99-11.

Land Use Regulations, Compliance, and Land Markets in Argentina Monkkonen, Paavo and Lucas Roconi. 2013. Urban Studies, 50(10): 1951-1969.

Housing Finance Reform and Increasing Socioeconomic Segregation in Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2012. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(4): 757-772.

Economic Restructuring, Urban Growth, and Short-term Trades: The Spatial Dynamics of the Hong Kong Housing Market, 1992-2008 Monkkonen, Paavo, Kelvin SK Wong, and Jaclene Begley. 2012. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42(3): 396-406.

The Demand for Land Regularization: Theory and Evidence from Tijuana, Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2012. Urban Studies, 49(2): 270-287.

The Housing Transition in Mexico: Expanding Access to Housing Finance Monkkonen, Paavo. 2011. Urban Affairs Review, 47(5): 672-695.

Monkkonen on Plan to Zone for 1.3 Million Homes

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Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about a state requirement that Southern California cities and counties plan for the construction of 1.3 million new homes in the next decade. The Southern California Association of Governments — which had proposed zoning for just 430,000 new homes during that period — must now determine how to fulfill the commitment in neighborhoods across Los Angeles, Orange, Imperial, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. Monkkonen argued for new housing in places where the demand is highest, such as Los Angeles’ Westside and other areas with strong job growth. To do otherwise would be “a travesty of planning,” especially given recent efforts to increase penalties on local governments that do not comply. Monkkonen said it’s unclear whether the law, which requires zoning for new housing but does not guarantee that the construction will take place, will have a significant effect on the region’s housing shortage.

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Monkkonen on Bringing All of L.A. Into the Housing Effort

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Curbed LA spoke with UCLA Luskin’s Paavo Monkkonen about efforts to provide affordable housing in every part of Los Angeles. City planners have been instructed to develop recommendations that require all neighborhoods to help meet L.A.’s affordable housing goals.  One option is “inclusionary zoning,” which would require new residential developments to include units that low-income renters can afford. Some developers argue that this policy would dissuade them from building new housing in the city. Monkonnen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, said inclusionary zoning would be a good start. But he added that it would not have much impact on single-family neighborhoods with little land zoned for multi-family buildings. “A better idea would also be to rezone a lot of land for multi-family and combine it with inclusionary zoning,” Monkonnen said.

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Pay Heed to Housing Assessment, Monkkonen Urges

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Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, laid out the high stakes of an upcoming reassessment of the region’s housing needs in an editorial for Urbanize Los Angeles and a conversation on LA Podcast. California cities are required by law to increase housing stock to accommodate population growth, based on a Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) conducted every eight years. In the past, the process has created anomalies like the “Beverly Hills loophole,” which allowed Beverly Hills to zone for just three housing units while the city of Imperial, with a smaller land area, half the population and lower income levels, was assigned 1,309 units. In the podcast, beginning at minute 54:40, Monkkonen explained RHNA’s history and next steps and spoke about the differing interpretations of “fairness” in allocating housing. He urged the public to engage with the Southern California Association of Governments to insist that the next round of assessments meet social and environmental goals.

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Elected Officials Blocked Progress on Housing, Monkkonen Says

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The Los Angeles Times spoke with UCLA Luskin’s Paavo Monkkonen about a vote by the Southern California Association of Governments to restrict residential building in the region. The decision undercuts Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pledge to build 3.5 million new homes to ease California’s affordable housing shortage, the article noted. “What happened was emblematic of what’s been happening with housing planning for decades in California,” said Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy. “A group of elected officials firmly committed to opposing change — in this case building more housing of any type in their city — used a seemingly technical process to block progress.” The story cited a 2013 study that found no clear link between Section 8 voucher holders and increased neighborhood crime — a connection sometimes cited by residents who object to construction of affordable housing in their neighborhoods. That study was conducted by Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy.

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Manville, Lens and Monkkonen on ‘the Consequences of Inaction’

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A CityLab article on housing supply as a hot-button issue delved into the robust debate around the best strategies to make shelter affordable. Los Angeles is the epicenter of the housing crisis, and UCLA Luskin urban planning scholars have conducted extensive research on the issue, with varying conclusions. The article described arguments made for and against upzoning, which would increase the housing stock by lifting regulatory limits on density. In an earlier article, Professor Michael Storper cast doubt on the effectiveness of such policies. In rebuttal, three of his UCLA Luskin colleagues, Associate Professors Michael Manville, Michael Lens and Paavo Monkkonen, authored an essay pointing to studies that support upzoning. “When every neighborhood acts to preserve itself, soon the city is mired in regulation, and rents and prices rise,” they wrote. “Were regulations relaxed, these places would have more housing, and price increases would first slow and eventually fall.” They concluded, “The consequences of inaction also matter.”

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