Zoned not planned

Abstract

There is a long and active tradition of land use planning in the United States, and planners have tried to subordinate regulation, primarily zoning, to prior planning. However, this project has met with only limited success. Americans prefer to make small-scale, ad hoc land use decisions. The reasons include the tradition of plans as blueprints for unlimited growth, the legal ability of local governments to ignore the regional impacts of their decisions, America’s preference for sprawling suburbia, the marginal status of plans in zoning law, and the chilling impact of the Supreme Court’s takings jurisprudence.