Local Regulations on Land Use

Sometimes individuals or groups have conflicts over how to use land in a city. For example, most homeowners want a place that is quiet at night so they can sleep. However, a factory owner might want to continue production, which can be noisy, around the clock. To balance competing desires, cities and counties use zoning ordinances, regulations that define how property in specific geographic regions may be used. Local governments use three general zoning categories:

• Residential, where people live
• Commercial, where people and businesses sell goods and services
• Industrial, where businesses make things

Governments use zoning ordinances as a tool of urban planning, a process of promoting growth and controlling change in land use. Zoning laws can result in very clear land-use segregation. However, not all cities have zoning ordinances, and most include undeveloped areas yet to be zoned.

Residential Zones

Those areas of a city devoted to where people live rather than to commercial or industrial functions are residential zones. Ordinances set limits on the density and size of houses within specific zones. For this reason, some residential neighborhoods contain only large homes and lots, while others are composed of small homes and lots, and still others contain apartment buildings.

Zoning can create various types of neighborhoods that appeal to people with various housing needs and lifestyles. However, it can also be used to prevent socioeconomic diversity or ethnic diversity in a neighborhood.

In North America, residential areas surrounding the CBD are known as the inner city. Apartment buildings and townhomes dominate the residential zone, which has the highest population density of the zones. As one moves farther from the inner city, population and housing-unit density declines, and types of housing change. This variation is known as the residential density gradient.

Suburbs are often characterized by single-family detached houses. More than half of all Americans now live in suburbs. Many suburbs are noticeably homogenous in terms of housing size and style. However, in recent years, homeowners have been tearing down existing homes and building new ones that are much larger. These new homes, known as McMansions, do not always conform to the style of other homes in the neighborhood.

Cycles of Residential Zones

Neighborhoods undergo transformations over time as existing residents move out and new ones move in. Through a process known as filtering, houses pass from one social group to another. This usually occurs when people with less wealth move into the houses after wealthier residents move. This creates a ripple effect down the social scale. The filtering process might include changing the use of a house. For example, a home built for a single family might be subdivided for use by two or more families or replaced with apartments.

Filtering is most noticeable when an ethnic enclave neighborhood changes to another group. The term invasion and succession refers to the process by which one social or ethnic group gradually replaces another through filtering. An important result of filtering is a changing landscape through the process of sequent occupancy.

The rise of gated communities is another example of change in suburbs and occasionally in cities. These neighborhoods are planned to control access and promote aesthetics within the community. They are fenced, or walled, with a limited number of streets going in and out. Security guards and cameras are sometimes found at the entrances. The landscaping, housing styles, and other visual elements of the community are strictly regulated.

Many communities today use urban infill in suburbs as one way to reduce urban sprawl on the outer edges of the city. Urban infill is the process of increasing the residential density of an area by replacing open space and vacant housing with residences. As land becomes more valuable in a suburb, bid-rent may make it profitable to replace lower-density houses with the large yards of higher density housing, multi-family housing, or even apartments.

Another change involves the availability of businesses. Suburban residents have always been able to find shops for food and necessities in their neighborhoods. In recent decades, there has been an increase in the number and size of businesses in suburbs:

• Strip malls and shopping malls have become common.
• Big-box retail stores have been successful.
• Offices and business services have moved to the suburbs.

All of these changes are part of the suburbanization of business, the movement of commerce out of cities to suburbs where rents are cheaper and commutes for employees are shorter. As a result, many cities have faced declines in job opportunities, consumer choices, and services.

Residential Land Use Outside North America

Outside of the United States and Canada, the residential density gradient does not usually run from higher to lower the farther one goes from the CBD. Instead, population density tends to increase in the suburbs even though land is more plentiful. In Europe, as explained earlier, the centers of cities contain many historic structures, and population densities are fairly low. The suburbs on the edges of the central cities contain multistory apartment complexes and have very high population densities.

In Latin America, the peripheral areas of cities may contain suburbs typical of the United States, with single-family houses and lower densities, and also suburbs similar to Europe with high-rise apartments. In addition, very densely settled squatter settlements, or favelas, are where the poorest residents live. Gated communities are increasingly common in Latin America as the region develops. Because of their popularity with wealthy urban elites, these security-minded neighborhoods are emerging in residential areas in all regions of the world today.

Sustainability and the Future

Using the earth’s resources while not causing permanent damage to the environment is referred to as sustainability. Maintaining the sustainability and long-term viability of cities has become an increasingly important discussion for city planners, developers, and citizens.

Modern cities face numerous challenges from urban sprawl to access to services to environmental injustice. New development concepts are shaping the debate about sustainability and city landscapes in both the United States and around the world.

Smart-Growth Policies and Greenbelts

Urban planners and policymakers have developed smart-growth policies to combat urban sprawl and create a new vision for cities that are more sustainable and equitable. Smart growth focuses on city planning and transportation systems of an urban region.

One major goal of smart-growth policies is to slow sprawl by creating concentrated growth in compact centers. These policies suggest spatial arrangements that focus on encouraging a mix of building types and uses with a variety of housing and transportation options available within communities. Smart growth also includes several other goals:

• to create attractive residential neighborhoods that are walkable, meaning they provide amenities that people can walk to easily
• to develop a strong sense of place among residents
• to increase livability by making the community easy and safe to navigate
• to involve residents and stakeholders in decisions that impact the community

In London and other European cities, smart growth policies that preserve farmland and other open, undeveloped spaces near the city have existed for over one hundred years. These greenbelts, areas of undeveloped land around an urban area, have been created to limit a city’s growth and preserve farmland. At the same time, they provide an area for people to enjoy recreation and the environment.

Many communities in the United States have adopted greenbelt policies to limit growth similar to those in Europe. Under the principles of smart growth, cities are allowed to annex (legally add) land only in areas specifically designated by laws. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington, Tennessee, and Oregon have all enacted smart-growth policies.

Some cities desire to slow the population growth and development that could consume and alter their communities. Slow-growth cities adopt policies to slow the outward spread of urban areas and place limits on building permits in order to encourage a denser, more compact city. Protecting local sense of place and natural landscapes has also motivated governments to embrace slow-growth policies. The cities of Boulder, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon, are considered slow-growth cities that have aggressively applied these policies.

New Urbanism A group of developers in the 1990s created a set of strategies called new urban design to put smart growth into action within communities. Some strategies of new urbanism include creating human-scale neighborhoods (designed for optimum human use), reclaiming neglected spaces, giving access to multiple modes of transportation, increasing affordable housing, and creating mixed-use neighborhoods. Unlike the clear separation between residential and commercial uses created by zoning in most cities, these neighborhoods would have a mix of homes and businesses. A mixed-use neighborhood is vibrant, livable, and walkable. Homes would include a variety of sizes and price ranges to create a socially diverse community. Shared open spaces and community gathering spaces are also common.

New urbanism has succeeded in many communities that have tried the strategies in spite of two large obstacles:

• The existing system of zoning created segregated areas by land use, and thus contributed to sprawl.
• People accustomed to traditional land-use patterns in cities were not easily convinced that the new urbanism was an improvement.

Urban Infill

The opposite of leapfrog development (see Topic 6.2) and sprawl is urban infill, the process of building up underused lands within a city. Most cities have areas of vacant or undeveloped land of varying sizes. These may be remnants of shut-down industrial areas, airports, military bases, hospitals, or malls. The space could be unused because of difficult terrain or poor planning. Because infill uses vacant or discarded land rather than expanding the edge of a city, it is considered smart growth.

The communities of Central Park, Colorado, and Civita, California, are examples of both urban infill and new urbanism. The Civita master-planned community was built on the site of a former quarry located in the Mission Valley section of San Diego. Today, Civita includes a mix of housing types, parks, community centers, and commercial zones, and is well connected by public transit. The community also promotes sustainability by using renewable building materials, solar panels, electric vehicle charging stations, and energy management tools for residents and businesses.

Transit-Oriented Development

New urban and other smart growth developers have embraced the concept of transit-oriented development (TOD), which locates mixed-use residential and business communities near mass transit stops, resulting in a series of more compact communities which decreases the need for automobiles. Increasingly, TOD includes multiple forms of transportation including train, bus, and light rail.

Getting public transit riders the last mile from a transit stop to home or work is challenging for city planners. Micro-transport options such as taxis, electric street scooters, bicycles, and shared rider apps (such as Uber or Lyft) help solve the last mile problem. These types of transportation exist in most major world cities and have varying levels of success. The cities of Singapore, London, Paris, and New York City are rated as some of the most successful cities in transit-oriented development.

Criticisms of Smart Growth

While smart growth has proven successful in many cities, it is not without critics. Opponents make economic and social arguments against smart growth:

• It is not affordable to families because of increases in the cost of land and housing. It also contributes to congestion and noise within cities.
• Smart growth limits people’s choices for single-family housing, a suburban lifestyle, quality schools, and the autonomy of car ownership.
• It creates high-population density areas that often have higher crime rates and provides less privacy for residents.
• Smart growth can result in unintended segregation both ethnically and economically. It promotes the displacement of low-income and ethnic communities, and the destruction of historical buildings and unique places.

Specific criticisms of mass transit are that it has large upfront costs and is slow to adjust. Rapid growth and change often make it difficult for city planners to predict where mass transit will be most useful. Also, mass transit often does not connect all parts of a city so people still need cars to get to work, services, or school.