This seminar explores housing law and policy as oriented around two central issues: housing affordability and residential racial segregation in the United States. The course is discussion based, with students expected to play an active participatory role. The following topics are among those we discuss: modern federal, state, and local government intervention in housing markets; the history of subsidized housing policy in the U.S.; exclusionary and inclusionary zoning; the regulation of rents via rent control and rent stabilization; housing discrimination and federal and state fair housing law; the racialized history of housing development patterns in the U.S.; constitutional housing issues, including the criminalization of homelessness; and various relevant aspects of landlord-tenant law. Housing issues are examined from a variety of perspectives, including those of tenants, landlords, government regulators, and numerous housing advocacy groups.
