The story of housing in Berkeley, California, is one of retribution.
The city was the first in the US to enact single-family residential zoning, an explicitly racist type of legislation that restricted each housing lot to one unit. The 1916 vote sparked a wave of similar zoning laws across the country. More than a century later, the status quo is changing. Those flawed zoning practices of old are just now starting to get tossed out, thanks in part to Berkeley’s 37-year-old mayor Jesse Arreguín.