Zoning is a tool used by municipalities to control what kinds of buildings can be erected around their zone of governance. For example, buildings can be zoned as “residential,” “commercial,” or “industrial,” and zoning differentiates between buildings of different sizes, how they relate to their surroundings, other buildings, open spaces, and the street. Zoning is a tool to separate buildings of different purposes to different sections of town. Can you imagine if a factory plopped itself down right in the middle of a suburban block of residential houses?
This kind of zoning is known as Euclidian Zoning, named after the U.S. Supreme Court case Euclid v. Ambler. In the case, the town of Euclid, Ohio prevented Amber Realty from developing land in town for industry with zoning regulations. Ambler sued the city, yet the Supreme Court held that the court’s zoning ordinance was constitutional, and was not an unreasonable extension of the town’s power. This was a huge victory for towns nationwide, to which zoning ordinances were a new concept (1926). Not every city or town has zoning ordinances, for example, at the time of writing, Houston, TX is the largest un-zoned city in the United States.
After World War II, mass produced automobiles and favorable bank loans for single-family homes caused the suburban population of the United States to explode. This suburban sprawl is not always celebrated, some people criticize it on economic, environmental, and health levels. Zoning practices now aim to diversify and improve communities on all these levels. For example, including different kinds of houses to serve different kinds of families, or different transportation options so people don’t have to rely on cars, are a couple ways that zoning can affect a city. As mentioned earlier, creating a separate zone for industrial properties also makes sense. Sometimes these zones clash, like when a concrete contractor Santa Rosa starts to work on a new construction project in a residential area. Nevertheless, these activities are often temporary, and Euclidian zoning is widely used around North America.
While Euclidian zoning is popular, there are other kinds of zoning out there. Performance zoning using goal-oriented criteria to review parameters for new development projects. This allows for flexibility, rationality, transparency, and accountability in the zoning process, which counters the arbitrary, fixed nature of Euclidian zoning. There is also incentive zoning, which uses a reward based system to encourage goals that are beneficial to the community. While this method of zoning can be effective, it is complicated to implement. Countries around the world have different zoning systems, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. But the consensus is obvious: zoning is a useful and necessary urban planning tool.