ALICE Z. XU

Cityscapes of inequality: The political roots of slum growth and the segregated city

A growing literature finds that segregation in cities has major implications for public goods provision and distributive outcomes. But why are some cities more segregated than others in the first place? Drawing on semi-structured interviews with retired mayors and city councilors in Brazil, I argue that the partisan ideologies of local mayoral coalitions generate distinct patterns of slum growth and segregation. Left-wing mayoral coalitions employ zoning policies that protect centrally-located \textit{favelas} and \textit{corti\c{c}os} from evictions and that also encourage slum growth, while centrist and right-wing mayors allow private market forces to gentrify central neighborhoods. Consequently, cities governed by the latter exhibit more segregation and reduced slum growth. \\I find evidence for the argument using a close-elections regression discontinuity design, calculated indices of segregation, and an administrative survey of municipal land-use and zoning policies. The findings highlight how mayors with different ideological leanings pursue distinct zoning strategies, generating divergent patterns of urban development across cities.