Suburban minimum lot zoning and spatial equilibrium

The paper sets up a spatial, general equilibrium model of the residential economy in a semi-closed city with two income groups. The rich live in the suburbs and the poor in the central city. It appears that suburban minimum lot size zoning raises the utility level of the poor, a distributional consequence which has perhaps not been highlighted before. It also reduces land values (except at the periphery) and increases the size both of the central city and metropolitan area, implying that this form of zoning may be one of the major factors contributing to urban sprawl. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.