Small Businesses & Upzoning: Exploring how ownerships status impacts the way small businesses in Los Angeles respond to upzoning in their neighborhoods

To further understanding the processes that propel the housing market and local planning practices, I enrolled in a research seminar about the LA housing and homelessness crisis. In this course, students were tasked with crafting their own research proposal on a housing-related issue. After following upzoning legislation in San Francisco — The Family Upzoning Plan — I was curious to understand how community members are driven to delay the development process, particularly how small businesses understand the impacts of upzoning.

I found little to no research on the relationship between upzoning and small businesses, and thus set out to craft a framework to understand how small business ownership impacts the way businesses in LA view upzoning in their neighborhoods.