The Suburban Squeeze Land Conversion and Regulation in the San Francisco Bay Area

The Suburban Squeeze: Land Conversion and Regulation in the San Francisco Bay Area is a landmark study of how local land use policies and environmental regulations reshaped one of the country’s fastest-growing metropolitan regions. David E. Dowall traces the historical arc of Bay Area suburbanization after World War II and demonstrates how restrictive zoning, slow-growth ordinances, and fiscal constraints—especially after Proposition 13—contributed to rising housing costs and deepening jobs-housing imbalances. Through detailed case studies of six Bay Area cities and a comprehensive survey of local planning departments, the book reveals how well-intentioned growth controls have produced cumulative regional effects: higher land prices, constrained residential supply, and escalating pressures on industry and infrastructure.

Balancing rigorous quantitative analysis with lucid narrative, Dowall situates the Bay Area as both a cautionary tale and a national bellwether. He documents the direct costs of land use controls on new housing, the indirect spillovers in markets, and the broader social consequences of the suburban squeeze. By pairing cities with contrasting land use regimes, the book effectively constructs a “natural experiment” in urban planning, offering rare empirical evidence of how regulations shape metropolitan economies. For planners, policymakers, and scholars of housing and urban development, The Suburban Squeeze remains a vital resource—one that underscores the high costs of inaction while calling for more integrated regional approaches to reconcile environmental quality with the urgent need for affordable homes.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.