Behind The Concrete Curtain: How Zoning Benefits the Few at the Cost of the Many

Concrete is the ultimate institutional metaphor.  It begins as an agreeable fluid, easily shaped to conform to any purpose. When it's first mixed, it's sloshy and pliable, easily molded around any form or foundation. But then, it sets. It hardens into a rock-solid, unforgiving mass, freezing forever any shape or preference it was poured into. This is the apt metaphor for congealed preferences describing institutions. In politics, initially fluid intentions are poured into institutions. They solidify into rigid laws and—like concrete—become outcomes difficult to chip away.

America's housing crisis and political stagnation are often debated in terms of contemporary policy choices or ideological divides. Yet, a deeper understanding emerges when we apply the insights of William H. Riker and the Virginia School of Political Economy.

Riker’s concept is the "congealed preference." This means the specific interests and desires of motivated agents become like permanent concrete, embedded within institutional structures. Institutions, then, become the more permanent container of the preferences of those motivated agents. The challenge is that as these congealed preference-setting motivated agents reach a goal, a gap between them and the rest of the community inevitably expands. Thus, the institutions with those congealed preferences often cause a growing number of people to be locked out of the goal. Riker's framework offers a potent lens for analyzing zoning laws and those who enforce them as the container of congealed preferences, with wealthy landowners as motivated agents, and with a growing gap as people get locked out of affordable housing.

After analyzing zoning and affordable housing through the congealed preference lens, a solution called "Blank Slating" is proposed. It is a means to address the "bad" aspects of zoning and its institutions while preserving the "good" parts.

Why Housing Preferences Are Prone To Congeal

Housing is uniquely susceptible to the congealing of preferences—the process by which fleeting political agreements become rigid, permanent legal structures—due to its specific physical and economic nature. This vulnerability creates a systemic bias toward congealing.

1. Immobility and Local Control: Unlike goods able to move across jurisdictions, housing is stationary. This fundamental immobility grants local governments unparalleled power. Since land cannot flee high taxes or restrictive rules, a concentrated interest group (like existing homeowners) can effectively control the supply through local zoning and tax regimes without fear of the capital moving elsewhere. This makes it easier to lock in preferences for exclusivity at the municipal level.

2. The Time Lag and Policy Veto: Housing construction is a long-term capital project. It can take years from planning to completion. This significant time lag means that initial policy preferences—like a local desire for lower density—can be congealed into law (via zoning changes or permit delays) before the market can respond with new supply. Once a neighborhood achieves its low-density goal, that policy decision is structurally cemented, effectively granting existing residents a powerful, durable veto over future development.

3. Capital Intensity and Asset Value: Housing is the largest asset for most Americans. This high capital intensity means that homeowner political engagement is fierce and focused almost entirely on asset preservation. Preferences are not merely about aesthetics; they are about protecting a vast store of wealth. This economic necessity elevates the congealed preferences of homeowners (to prevent any construction that might devalue their home) above the needs of renters or future buyers, ensuring maximum political resistance to deregulation or increased supply.

4. The Power of the Decision Default: I have never met anyone with the mantra: "I actively support racism and unaffordable housing!" However, because existing zoning rules are the default, homeowners are supporting unaffordable housing by using their most powerful weapons: indifference and inaction. I encounter many people expressing social awareness, and all the while, supporting a socially divisive zoning system. It is one of the most bizarre ironies of my mostly white, upper-income friend group.

These four factors combine to make housing policies remarkably sticky. What starts as a simple preference for a quiet street quickly congeals into an enduring legal structure, permanently warping the housing market to favor the asset holders over those seeking affordable shelter.

Zoning’s profound impact lies in its empowerment of two crucial and often competing groups: The NIMBY Snobs and The Virtue Voters. These 2 groups create massive challenges for those needing affordable housing:

1. NIMBY Snobs and The Virtue Voters directly and indirectly cause the affordable housing challenge, and

2. NIMBY Snobs and The Virtue Voters possess incentives increasingly misaligned with the majority of people needing affordable housing.

Both groups support policies actively reducing the production and quality of housing. This effectively makes housing less affordable in a world in desperate need of more affordable housing. The following sections detail how the preferences of these two powerful factions have been congealed into law.

The NIMBY Snobs: The Congealed Preference for Exclusion and Asset Protection

The "NIMBY Snobs"—those homeowners fiercely advocating "Not In My Backyard"—represent a classic case of congealed economic self-interest. Their core preference is simple: to protect and enhance their property values and preserve the perceived character of their neighborhoods.

These core preferences may sound reasonable. That is, until you realize:

1. These preferences are a zero-sum game. More for one means less for another, and

2. There are far more losers than winners in the home affordability game.

Next is a brief walk-through of how we got here and the unaffordable housing outcome:

• Initial Preference (The Segregation Shift): While comprehensive zoning began in the early 20th century, the proliferation and strictness of exclusionary zoning (like minimum lot sizes and maximum density restrictions) greatly accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s. This movement was a direct, localized political reaction to the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Fair Housing Act (1968). The preference of some white homeowners to segregate communities and protect segregated property values, no longer legally possible through racial covenants, became successfully congealed into complex zoning codes. This solidified the preference for low-density, single-family homes as the primary tool of exclusion. Therefore, the Civil Rights Act did not end segregation and discrimination; it just shifted it into zoning.

• Congealed Through Zoning: Zoning laws—especially those mandating minimum lot sizes, maximum building heights, and single-family exclusive districts—are the institutional embodiment of this NIMBY preference. These regulations are not transient policy choices; they are congealed rules become incredibly difficult to alter. Once established, they grant existing homeowners a de facto veto over new development.

• Public Choice Outcome: This creates a powerful concentrated benefit (for existing homeowners) and a diffused cost (on aspiring homeowners, renters, and economic dynamism). Public Choice theory predicts concentrated beneficiaries will be highly organized and effective in lobbying to preserve their advantages. Thus, the NIMBY preference for exclusion becomes structurally cemented, leading to housing shortages, inflated prices, and reduced economic mobility, all protected by seemingly immutable local ordinances.

The Virtue Voters: The Congealed Preference for Symbolic Action and Moral Grandstanding

The "Virtue Voters" present a more complex, yet equally potent, form of congealed preference. Their driving force is often a preference for signaling their moral superiority or empathetic compassion through policy, even when those policies have significant negative externalities and negatively distort the housing market. Think of the Virtue Voters as "Fighting Fire with Fire." Except, as we will discuss, the Virtue Voters' "fire" is worse than the already not-good Nimby Snobs' "fire."

• Initial Preference (The Moral Signal): These voters embrace policies offer immediate, visible relief to a perceived injustice, such as high housing costs. Their core preference is for a particular vision of a community is "fair" and "inclusive." The policy of rent control is the ideal embodiment of this preference, offering an attractive, simple solution (price caps) feels morally right, regardless of its long-term economic effects. Keep in mind, most Virtue Voters do not actually live in rent-controlled housing. Why? Because they are rich and the rent-controlled housing they advocate is not nice.

• Congealed Through Policy: The preferences of Virtue Voters become congealed when their desired outcomes are codified into permanent regulatory mandates like rent control laws. They are fixed rules locking in a specific, historical political compromise—tenants must be protected from "excessive" rent increases—and are incredibly difficult to repeal because doing so means being labeled as "anti-tenant" or "pro-gouging."

• Public Choice Outcome: This congealed preference for symbolic action leads directly to the economic inefficiency predicted by the Virginia School. Rent control artificially suppresses prices, signaling to developers building new, necessary housing is unprofitable. The massive negative effect of price controls is the very powerful unseen. The building not getting done because the economic price signals are not allowed to operate and attract builders. Also, because current landlords face price controls, they have no incentives to keep the property up. Rent-controlled property inevitably falls into disrepair. Riker's framework demonstrates the policy remains congealed and protected because the concentrated benefits (cheap rent for existing tenants) and the moral signaling (voters feeling virtuous) successfully defeat the widely diffused economic costs (reduced housing supply) Public Choice critiques.

The Solution: Blank Slating for De-Congealing

Breaking free from these institutionalized constraints requires more than minor policy tweaks; it demands a fundamental reset. One effective approach is "Blank Slating." This process involves a new municipal decision process. One periodically setting aside all existing zoning rules and evaluating them from a clean, zero-based baseline. Blank Slating changes the decision default, as mentioned earlier, as the 4th reason why housing is subject to congeal.

Blank Slating recognizes a place for some zoning rules. For example, a community may broadly agree building a vape shop next to an elementary school is a bad idea. This "good" zoning is appropriate for community-wide commutative justice and the protection of person, property, or promise (contract rights). Blank Slating protects against "bad" zoning or those ossified rules clearly no longer supporting the commutative justice needs of the majority of the community. These are likely building codes to protect the "community character" or tastes of a small minority. In this context, the definition of "community" is aligned with the U.S. Declaration of Independence, where "all (hu)men were created equal."  Not just homeowners.

Zoning restrictions should be reintroduced only when strictly necessary to protect safety, infrastructure, or the fundamental property rights of all citizens—not just current homeowners. By making housing choice the default assumption, Blank Slating requires local governments to actively re-justify every exclusionary rule, directly challenging the congealed preferences of the past and paving the way for a more affordable future. Effectively, Blank Slating periodically reverts the hardened cement back into its porous slurry, so a community can confirm it still meets their needs before it hardens again. For a deeper dive into the Blank Slating concept and its connection to proven budgetary reform principles, see the article here.

There is an underlying assumption about Blank Slating worth mentioning. Blank Slating assumes most people are not hardcore racists or segregationists. Blank Slating assumes most people do want the best for their broader community, especially if they do not have to work too hard to achieve it. Blank Slating assumes most people are apathetic when it comes to dealing with complex social issues and zoning. Most people do NOT EVER desire to be on a zoning commission. They just want to be left alone to pursue their own lives. And, importantly, Blank Slating assumes the very small minority who do get attracted to zoning commissions are likely after their own, wealth-inspired preferences. Getting real about motivations is the core idea of Blank Slating. It creates a decision environment aligned with the indifferent majority and protects against the preference congealing of the very small minority.

De-congealing the Concrete Curtain

The insights of William H. Riker and the Virginia School reveal America's zoning challenges are not merely a battle of current ideas; they are a struggle against congealed preferences have become entrenched in the very fabric of local governance. The NIMBY Snobs' desire for asset protection and The Virtue Voters' preference for symbolic control (manifested in policies like rent control) have found their ultimate institutional expression in zoning laws.

To foster genuine progress and address the housing crisis, the task is not simply to propose new policies, but to understand and confront these deeply embedded, congealed preferences. This requires a systemic de-congealing—a re-evaluation of zoning's foundational assumptions and a dismantling of the mechanisms allow narrow, self-serving interests to dictate the housing supply for an entire nation. Only then can America move "From Gridlock to Greatness," freeing itself from the concrete curtain of historical preference.

Resources for the Curious

Supporting Works by Jeff Hulett

• Hulett, J. (2024). The Simple Answer to the Affordable Housing Crisis: Stop Making Home Building Illegal. The Curiosity Vine. Presents the economic framework for the affordable housing challenge and why zoning is at the center of policy-making, causing housing to be less affordable. The "Nimby Snobs" and "Virtue Voters" are defined.

• Hulett, J. (2025). The Illusion of Affordability: Why the 50-Year Mortgage Will Make Housing Less Affordable. The Curiosity Vine. Reinforces the challenge of demand-side policies causing expanded demand without impacting supply. This presents the affordable housing challenge as a production challenge, not a demand challenge.

• Hulett, J. (2025). The Big Shift: How the Civil Rights Act Didn’t End Discrimination, It Just Moved It. The Curiosity Vine. Presents the case for the causal relationship of the Civil Rights Act leading to increased zoning.

• Hulett, J. (2025). The Bureaucratic Poverty Trap. The Curiosity Vine. Contends that well-intentioned, demand-side government programs and an expanding bureaucracy often create a self-perpetuating cycle of dependency. This occurs because bureaucratic self-interest, combined with policies that distort market incentives, ultimately crowds out true economic mobility and makes the American Dream unattainable for the poor.

• Hulett, J. (2025). If You Do Not Like It, Move. The Curiosity Vine. Discusses the reduction in geographic stickiness as an essential part of upward mobility.

Theoretical and Foundational Works

• Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock, G. (1962). The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Public Choice / Virginia School

• Riker, W. H. (1980). Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions. American Political Science Review, 74(2), 432–447. "Congealed Preferences" / Positive Political Theory

• Bastiat, Frédéric. That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen. In Selected Essays on Political Economy, edited by George B. de Huszar, translated by Seymour Cain. Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: Foundation for Economic Education, 1995 (Original work published 1850). Classic essay describing the power of the unseen effects of economic decisions. It is consistent with explaining why zoning benefits the few at the cost of the many.

• Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. Random House, 2012. Taleb discusses renormalization. It is consistent with explaining why zoning benefits the few at the cost of the many.

  
  

Housing, Zoning, and Exclusionary Economics

• Zoning History and Exclusionary Economics:

  • Rothstein, R. (2017). The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.

  • Fischel, W. A. (2001). The Homevoter Hypothesis: How Homeowners Rule American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Rent Control (Economic Inefficiency):

  • Sowell, T. (2015). Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy. New York: Basic Books.

  • Glaeser, E. L., & Luttmer, E. F. P. (2003). The Misallocation of Housing Under Rent Control. American Economic Review, 93(4), 1027–1046.