Is segregation (and building restrictions) a normal good?
You can certainly add having bought the right properties in the right cities in the 1970s and 1980s to the list of drivers of inequality, but I don’t think it is a big piece of the puzzle. Instead, I think it is more accurate to point out that one of the first and most valuable amenities people purchase when they become wealthier is wealthier neighbors. Wealthy people self-segregate, and the places to which they self-segregate become valuable, because the way you get a place limited to wealthy people is by bidding up the price of being in that place. The community, or the city, is gated for a reason.
Here is much more by Steve Randy Waldman. So given this not so ideal preference is in place, might building restrictions be a relatively efficient way to satisfy it? Compare to violence, racism, or more direct interference with individual mobility?