This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: When the Islamic Society of Santa Barbara welcomed its community to its newly built mosque in 2019, nearly 19 years had passed since it purchased the property. The city's permitting process alone took 10 years.
The project faced delays during 16 public hearings, at which residents of the suburban town of Goleta raised concerns, particularly about where worshippers would park their cars. While such objections might seem legitimate in isolation, a new study led by scholars at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and UCLA finds that Muslim communities building new mosques disproportionately face opposition in the form of parking disputes. The researchers say these procedural delays may often mask anti-Muslim prejudice.
Published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, the research shows that newly proposed mosques are 16% to 18% more likely to face opposition than newly proposed churches nearby—significantly more than would be expected by chance. The researchers argue that because both religion and parking provoke fear in many people, the two can become entwined as community members and city officials take actions that delay or derail mosque construction. "A fear of religion and religious minorities exists in many areas of America, as much as we care about religious freedom.
But there's also the fear of not enough parking," said Mark Fathi Massoud, a professor of politics and legal studies at UC Santa Cruz and the study's senior author. "You put religion and parking together, and it results in this conflagration of emotion that is very visceral for people. We are trying to surface that viscerality of parking and of religion, and the ways that they come together, even in progressive towns and cities, that ultimately hurts Muslim communities." Land-use processes across the U.S. often provide opportunities for public input.
While some objections are made in good faith, urban planning research has shown that the process can provide a way to disguise prejudice as a planning objection. Affordable housing projects, for example, frequently face opposition framed as procedural complaints. "Opposition to new development comes from many places, including from people who are trying to hide socially unacceptable, prejudicial, or racist opinions," said Adam Millard-Ball, a study author and professor of urban planning at UCLA.
"Objectors rarely say 'We don't want low-income people living here." Instead, they say, 'Well, the building doesn't have enough parking.' It's attractive as a disguise because parking is also a genuine concern for many people, and so separating the parking from the prejudice is a challenge." Massoud and Millard-Ball sought to understand whether a similar tactic was being used against Muslim communities—a question no academic research had previously addressed. UC Santa Cruz doctoral student and alumnus Huzaifa Shahbaz joined their team, bringing his expertise as a former senior researcher for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The San Francisco Bay Area chapter of CAIR served as a community partner on the research.
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