Breaking the Stranglehold of Single-Family Zoning: Strategies and First Steps Toward Modernizing Local Codes

Abstract

As Richard Babcock, lawyer and author of The Zoning Game, once observed about zoning, no one likes single-family zones except the people who live there. Certainly urban planners have identified the large-lot model as the enemy, to be tracked down and eliminated whenever possible. Even suburban planners, to the extent they are allowed any theory, are unhappy with the sterile inefficiencies resulting from their labors.