Is Zoning Government's 'Most Significant Regulatory Power'?

Editor’s note: This story is part of Governing’s ongoing Q&A series “In the Weeds.” The series features experts whose knowledge can provide new insights and solutions for state and local government officials across the country. Have an expert you think should be featured? Email Web Editor Natalie Delgadillo at ndelgadillo@governing.com.



Eight in 10 Americans live in a city, and zoning determines their daily experience of life in ways that few realize. Sara Bronin, an architect, lawyer, academic and historical preservation expert, has written a book, Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World, to raise awareness of the essential role of zoning in making cities healthy, sustainable and enjoyable places to live.

“By and large, people think of zoning as an often-bewildering set of rules enshrined in inscrutable maps and regulations,” Bronin writes. She grew up in Houston, the only large city in the country without zoning, but became a national expert, including contributing to legal reference books on the subject.

Bronin now lives in Hartford, Conn., and chaired its planning and development commission for seven years. In 2022, she was confirmed as the chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, an independent federal agency.

“The paradox of zoning — the tragedy of zoning — is that it often starts out in a hopeful attempt to improve our cities and the lives we live in them,” Bronin says in her book. “Then, all too often it fails; it even does the opposite.”

In a conversation with Governing, she offers examples of “zoning for good,” and the need for more people to understand how zoning reform can improve communities.

Who do you hope will read your book?

The lives of millions of Americans are impacted by zoning rules, whether they know it or not. I'm hoping that the book connects with people who may have heard about zoning but don't quite understand its power. I also hope that it helps state and local policymakers think differently about the broader context within which zoning codes operate.

State and local policymakers shouldn't feel hamstrung by zoning codes that are often out of date and don't reflect the values we have today. My book is a call to action for anybody who can influence zoning codes to modernize them for the better, to update them to ensure that they are being used for good.

You describe zoning as the "most significant regulatory power" of local government. Why is that?

Zoning dictates where everything in a city can be built. What that means is that it's zoning that determines whether a resident can walk to get an ice cream cone. It's zoning that determines how far you are from a hospital or from your workplace. It's zoning that determines whether you must use a car to get around.

Zoning has cumulative effects on individual decisions and individuals’ freedom to choose how they want to live.

You've done a lot to bring attention to the connection between the prevalence of single-family zoning and housing shortages. Are there other effects that are not as well recognized?

Single-family zoning, particularly single-family zoning on large lots, has significant environmental effects that I think most people don't appreciate. Large-lot zoning code requires that people drive. It mandates sprawl. It increases separation and forces developers to build outward into environmentally sensitive areas.

Zoning can also have positive environmental impacts. In the book, I talk about the example of Tucson, Ariz., whose zoning code requires property owners to use xeriscaping [drought-tolerant, low-water plants] in their yards. That single provision has helped the city diminish water use, which is important for a place located in the middle of the Sonoran Desert.

Hartford, Conn., appears often in the book because of my time leading the city's planning and zoning commission. We drafted an entire chapter of the zoning code devoted to street design. We included street trees and green infrastructure, but also added options for the development of bike lanes and sidewalks, and provisions to minimize cars traveling at high speed.

How does zoning affect other determinants of well-being?

I start the book with a walk I took with a neighborhood leader on Albany Avenue in Hartford, which has some of the worst health outcomes in the state, including high asthma and obesity rates. What I learned from that walk, which took us up and down the avenue, passing gas stations and car washes and fast-food joints, was that zoning had created a physical environment that depended on the car.

It forced residents to bear the brunt of traffic, while also experiencing limitations on the kinds of neighborhood amenities they could access. At the time of our walk, there was not a single sit-down restaurant on the avenue. It was all drive-throughs or strip mall restaurants.

Zoning has a big impact on health outcomes, as individual property owners make cumulative decisions in accordance with the zoning code. In this case, it changed what was a thriving Main Street into a commercial thoroughfare, with long-term ramifications for neighborhood residents.

You’ve led the development of an online National Zoning Atlas. Is that a place people could go for ideas about improving zoning code?

The National Zoning Atlas grew out of my interest in trying to help people understand how zoning works. I would love for your readers to use it.

We have about 5,000 cities, towns and counties up on the map. That covers land where about 110 million Americans live. You can see in one click how your community zones for housing, where mixed-use development is allowed, and where any zone in your community is located.

Many people who have used the Atlas are surprised to find how little land in a community is devoted to multifamily housing, and how much has large minimum lot size requirements. We've seen huge interest in the National Zoning Atlas among students, because many are learning about the systemic issues that have led to segregation and the lack of economic opportunity. They view an understanding of zoning as being a critical part of their understanding of that issue.

The great thing about the Atlas is that you can compare your town to neighboring towns. One way to make change in your community is to say, “This town next door is doing it better, and we can too.”