Alternatives to Zoning

Abstract

Irrespective of one's political ideology—commitment to the market for allocation of land or belief in the competence of local, regional, state, or provincial officials—there is a general consensus that zoning in its present form is an inadequate tool to deal with the problems of development and urbanization. It imposes high costs on the public administering it, as well as the land developer working under it. The costs of preventing misuse of resourced through zoning are often greater than would be the impact of the misallocation itself. Zoning is also attacked for its lack of equity in both an economic sense, among landowners, and in a social sense, among families seeking affordable housing. Finally, zoning has simply not produced good quality development or development better than the market itself may have elicited. The question then becomes, what is the alternative to this crude regulatory device?