Background
Understanding the Crisis
How zoning law became an engine of isolation—and why reform is urgent.
The Loneliness Crisis
Americans are more isolated than at any point in modern history. This is a public health emergency.
Drop in in-person socializing over the past two decades
American Time Use Survey
Rise in time spent alone among young people since 2010
American Time Use Survey
Of American trips are taken on foot
Federal Highway Administration
How We Got Here
We designed loneliness into law.
For most of history, connection was woven into daily life: children in the street, neighbors sharing meals, elders cared for nearby. Then we rewrote the rules. Beginning in the mid-20th century, zoning codes mandated large lots, single-family homes, separated uses, and rigid definitions of who counts as “family.”
The result: isolation built into the landscape itself. The casual encounters that sustain community life—bumping into a neighbor, walking to the corner store, gathering in a shared courtyard—became increasingly rare, and in many places legally impossible.
The most logical ways to combat the loneliness epidemic—clustering homes, forming intentional communities, living among chosen families—are actively prohibited by municipal zoning laws across New York State.
Social connection is essential infrastructure. Our laws are systematically dismantling it.
The Problem
Neutral in language. Discriminatory in effect.
Municipal codes across New York dictate who may live together and how communities may form. Though often neutral on their face, these rules disproportionately harm LGBTQ+ individuals, single adults, older residents, multigenerational families, and people with disabilities.
They also undermine public health by restricting walkable, socially connected forms of living that research consistently links to better physical and mental outcomes.
The Supply Cost
New York needs this decade, by the State's own estimate. The codes that wall off communities also choke off construction. A young family just starting out, a multigenerational household, a group of close friends—each runs into the same wall of minimum lot sizes, use restrictions, and bans on anything but a detached house. Scarcity is engineered, and the people it prices out are the ones the law claims to protect.
The law can be changed.
These outcomes were written into law—which means they can be written out of it. New York already holds the constitutional and statutory tools to act.
Read the Legal Case