![Sample our Geography journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5937/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Geography.jpg"})
Abstract
Planners in the United States and Canada should stop defending single-family zoning, the single most harmful widely used practice in planning. In the century since first adoption, it has exacerbated both inequality and climate change. Land use regulations that make a singly occupied, detached house on a large parcel the only allowable option should be replaced, wherever they exist, with new rules that allow medium-density, or “Missing Middle,” housing to be built by right. These changes should be applied broadly at the scale of an entire city or, best of all, a state, rather than piecemeal. Encouraging recent events in Minneapolis (MN), Oregon, and elsewhere show that single-family zoning is being seriously challenged for the first time, but more progress is needed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I am grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for their engaging, challenging, and thoughtful critiques.
Notes
1 “Northern America,” though likely unfamiliar to many readers, is a useful term in this context because it refers to the portion of the North American continent that includes the United States and Canada but excludes Mexico and the countries of Central America and the Caribbean. My arguments in this Viewpoint apply to the United States and Canada but not to the other nations of North America.
2 As of this writing, Minneapolis has not yet updated its citywide zoning ordinance to match its newly passed comprehensive plan. However, under Minnesota state law, comprehensive plans prevail over zoning (Bertolet, Citation2018). Thus, even if they are as-yet incomplete, Minneapolis’s actions can be regarded as highly consequential and unprecedented among large Northern American cities.
3 A partial exception is Vancouver, which for years before its citywide rezoning in the fall of 2018 already allowed a detached “laneway” or alley house to coexist with a single-family house and “secondary suite,” or basement apartment (Larsen, Citation2018).
4 For a definition of and repository of information on accessory dwelling units, refer to the website for the Research KnowledgeBase on the topic, maintained by the APA (Citationn.d.-a). Recently, the APA has partnered with the American Association of Retired Persons to promote accessory dwelling units (APA, Citation2018).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jake Wegmann
JAKE WEGMANN ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Community and Regional Planning program at the University of Texas at Austin.