Quotes About Zoning

Philip Langdon's A Better Place to Live is a painstaking examination of how to "retrofit" American suburbs and when we come to the necessary matter of re-writing the building and zoning codes, this book should be one of the primers.

Suburban zoning has replaced "public characters" with the retailers and their employees in the malls and out on the strips.

zoning ordinances were copied and enforced all over the land, prohibiting the stuff of community from intrusion into residential areas.

Especially troubling for me is the research that finds that liberal communities actually engage in higher rates of exclusionary zoning than conservative ones.

The St. Louis zoning ordinance was eventually adopted in 1919, two years after the Supreme Court's Buchanan ruling banned racial assignments; with no reference to race, the ordinance pretended to be in compliance.

Because the Buchanan decision had made it "impossible to find an appropriate legal formula" for segregation, Freund said that zoning masquerading as an economic measure was the most reasonable means of accomplishing the same end.

The zone plan drafted by Whitten and published by the Atlanta City Planning Commission in 1922 explained that "race zoning is essential in the interest of the public peace, order and security and will promote the welfare and prosperity of both the white and colored race.

Not only were these neighborhoods zoned to permit industry, even polluting industry, but the plan commission permitted taverns, liquor stores, nightclubs, and houses of prostitution to open in African American neighborhoods but prohibited these as zoning violations in neighborhoods where whites lived.

In the years since the 1926 Supreme Court ruling, numerous white suburbs in towns across the country have adopted exclusionary zoning ordinances to prevent low-income families from residing in their midst. Frequently, class snobbishness and racial prejudice were so intertwined that when suburbs adopted such ordinances, it was impossible to disentangle their motives and to prove that the zoning rules violated constitutional prohibitions of racial discrimination.

Because life is bigger than equations, stronger than money, stronger than guns and poison and bad zoning policy, stronger than capitalism, Because Mother Nature bats last, and Mother Ocean is strong, and we live inside our mothers forever, and Life is tenacious and you can never kill it, you can never buy it

Back in 1910, word of the rise of the skyscraper in New York had panicked congressmen, who promptly zoned height limits for buildings in the District of Columbia, so that no private building could ever overshadow the Capitol.

Even the classic American main street, with its mixed-use buildings right up against the sidewalk, is now illegal in most municipalities. Somewhere along the way, through a series of small and well-intentioned steps, traditional towns became a crime in America.

The problem is that one cannot easily build Charleston anymore, because it is against the law. Similarly, Boston's Beacon Hill, Nantucket, Santa Fe, Carmel—all of these well-known places, many of which have become tourist destinations, exist in direct violation of current zoning ordinances.

We live today in cities and suburbs whose form and character we did not choose. They were imposed upon us, by federal policy, local zoning laws, and the demands of the automobile.

In some ways, the neighborhood was the poster child for bad zoning. There were shiny glass-and-steel condominiums across from corrugated and I-beam parking garages. Single-family homes perched alongside recycling plants and foundries. A new multistory school turned its proud granite façade away from its neighbor, a dilapidated relic of a car repair shop, like an ungrateful child ashamed of an ailing parent.

Some environmentalists already are proponents of urban compactness. Sierra Club's magazine reports that in Vancouver, "Mayor Sam Sullivan's EcoDensity program includes zoning changes to allow 'secondary suites,' or in-law apartments; triplexes; and narrow streets with houses that abut property lines." Peter Calthorpe's "walkability" has become a real estate selling point, with walkable neighborhoods able to charge premium prices.

The model of the human habitat dictated by zoning is a formless, soul-less, centerless, demoralizing mess. It bankrupts families and townships. It disables whole classes of decent, normal citizens. It ruins the air we breathe. It corrupts and deadens our spirit.

I like to sit and listen to conversations here in Nashville. Not in a weird, stalker-ish way. I wander around Tennessee and find myself in little bars just zoning in.

If the Supreme Court rules that rent control is an unconstitutional taking of property, it would put all sorts of zoning rules in danger.

With tough interpretation of taxi and zoning regulations, neither Uber nor Airbnb would have gotten started. By the time many cities recognized their existence, both were fairly large and had the political support of their customers.

Our community is like many around the country that have, as the gentleman from New York referenced, sophisticated planning and zoning regulations. These are elements that are developed as a result of local community pressure to balance interests.

Invite the best and brightest to compete for a grand prize to come up with designs, including new zoning, building codes and so forth, for New Orleans that could make it safe from water, and let the state and city pick the plan that works best for Louisiana.

There's something called CEQA in California - NEPA at the federal level. There's indigenous lands and autonomies relating to governance on those lands. There are all kinds of obstructions as it relates to just getting zoning approval and getting building permits.

Zoning laws making housing more expensive? That's less of a problem with a universal basic income and more of a reason to put money directly into people's hands.