* Assistant Secretary of Environmental Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts; Lecturer in Planning and Environmental Law, Harvard Graduate School of Design and Kennedy School of Government; J.D., Harvard Law School, 1994; M. Arch., Harvard Graduate School of Design, 1983; B.A., Yale University, 1978.
1 Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961).
2 The term “Euclidean zoning” describes the standard form of zoning that was widely adopted during the 1920s under versions of the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act (SZEA), and that was blessed by the Supreme Court in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926). Euclidean zoning is characterized by dividing a municipality into uniform districts that regulate density, bulk, and use in a consistent manner in each district, and by the presumptions that uses should be strictly separated and densities should be restrained as much as possible. For a wide-ranging set of essays on Euclidean zoning, see Zoning and the American Dream (Charles M. Haar & Jerold S. Kayden eds., 1989).
3 See F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Rich Boy, in The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald 177 (Malcolm Crowley ed., 1951).
4 For an overview of Jacobs’s views on urbanism and critical responses to her work, see David R. Hill, Jane Jacobs’s Ideas on Big, Diverse Cities: A Review and Commentary, 54 J. Amer. Plan. Ass’n 302 (1988).
5 Jacobs, supra note 1, at 143.
6 Id. at 148.
7 Id.
8 Id. at 150-51.
9 Id. at 206-07, 209; see generally Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (1938).
10 Jacobs, supra note 1, at 202-03, 211.
11 Id. at 213-15.
12 Id. at 215.
13 Id. at 152.
14 Id. at 154-61.
15 Id. at 234-38, 243-49.
16 See Hill, supra note 4, at 311-12.
17 Jacobs, supra note 1, at 165-74.
18 Id. at 165.
19 See generally id. at 29-88.
20 Id. at 129, 178-86.
21 Id. at 363-68.
22 See Robert H. Freilich, The Land-Use Implications of Transit-Oriented Development: Controlling the Demand Side of Transportation Congestion and Urban Space, 30 Urb. Law. 547, 557 (1998).
23 See Jacobs, supra note 1, at 360-63.
24 Id. at 187-90.
25 Id. at 193-99.
26 Id. at 384-88. Here, Jacobs was influenced by Kevin Lynch’s investigations into how city-dwellers perceive the physical organization of their communities. See generally Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (1960).
27 Jacobs, supra note 1, at 114.
28 Id. at 122.
29 Id. at 417-28.
30 Id. at 252.
31 By doing so, Jacobs traces back to Ebenezer Howard’s 1898 vision of the “garden city.” See generally Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow (F.J. Osborn ed., 4th ed. 1965) (1898).
32 Jacobs, supra note 1, at 252-56.
33 Standard Zoning Enabling Act § 3 (1926), reprinted in 3 Rathkopf’s The Law of Zoning and Planning 100-1, app. A (1956) [hereinafter SZEA].
34 Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 391 (1926). On the exclusionary aspects of the Euclid decision generally, see Yale Rubin, Expulsive Zoning: The Inequitable Legacy of Euclid, in Zoning and The American Dream 101-21 (Charles M. Haar & Jerold S. Kayden eds., 1989).
35 Village of Euclid, 272 U.S. at 394.
36 See Standard City Planning Enabling Act § §  13, 15 (1928), reprinted in American Law Institute, Model Land Development Code (1976).
37 On Burnham, Olmsted, and the early city planning movement, see generally Mel Scott, American City Planning Since 1890 47-109 (1969).
38 See Frank B. Williams, The Law of City Planning and Zoning 65-67, 75-79 (1922) (discussing French condemnation statutes); Donald Olsen, The City as a Work of Art: London, Paris, Vienna 35-57 (1986) (discussing Baron Haussman and Paris).
39 See Williams, supra note 38, at 39-41, 83-87; see also Seymour I. Toll, Zoned American 128-40 (1969).
40 See Williams, supra note 38, at 210-64; Toll, supra note 38, at 128-40.
41 See Williams, supra note 38, at 128-48; see also Cincinnati v. Vester, 33 F.2d 242, 244-45 (6th Cir. 1929), aff’d 281 U.S. 439 (1930) (discussing excess condemnation).
42 See SZEA, supra note 33, § 3.
43 Scott, supra note 37, at 120-27, 250-52.
44 Jacobs, supra note 1, at 18-25.
45 See generally Hill, supra note 4.
46 Clifford L. Weaver & Richard F. Babcock, City Zoning 119-20 (1979). The authors’ 1979 assessment remains accurate today.
47 On New York City’s pioneering use of such innovations, see generally Norman Marcus, Zoning from 1961 to 1991: Turning Back the Clock, in Planning and Zoning New York City 61-102 (Todd W. Bressi ed., 1993). On special review procedures in urban zoning, see Weaver & Babcock, supra note 46, at 58-69, 119-31 (1979).
48 Weaver & Babcock, supra note 46, at 55-69. For a comprehensive example of project-specific standards within a special review district, see Boston, MA, Zoning Code art. 38 Mid-Town Cultural District (2000).
49 See Hill, supra note 4, at 305.
50 Weaver & Babcock, supra note 48, at 181-97.
51 See generally William H. Whyte, Jr., Are Cities Un-American?, reprinted in The Editors of Fortune, The Exploding Metropolis 23 (1958).
52 See generally Jane Jacobs, Downtown Is For People, reprinted in The Editors of Fortune, The Exploding Metropolis 157 (1958).
53 The term “edge city” was coined by Joel Garreau to describe an ex-urban area containing at least 5 million square feet of commercial space and 600,000 square feet of retail space—that is, several large office parks and a regional shopping mall. Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier 6-7 (1991).
54 Jonathan Barnett, The Fractured Metropolis 27–46, 154–60 (1995). Zoning plays a less important role in stable, mature urban neighborhoods, or in impoverished areas that suffer from inadequate public services. Id. at 118, 175; Weaver & Babcock, supra note 46, at 29-52.
55 Jacobs, supra note 1, at 237-38.
56 See generally Michael Kwartler, Legislating Aesthetics: The Role of Zoning in Designing Cities, in Zoning and The American Dream 187-220 (Charles M. Haar & Jerold S. Kayden eds., 1989).
57 On New Urbanism generally, see generally Charter of the New Urbanism (Michael Leccese & Kathleen McCormick eds., 2000); Andres Duany et al., Suburban Nation (2000).
58 See generally Oregon Transportation and Growth Management Program, Model Development Code and User’s Guide for Small Cities (1999) [hereinafter Oregon Small Cities].
59 New York City, which pioneered the use of many special review procedures, is engaged in a citywide review of its zoning code, aimed at more predictable, urban-design-oriented standards. See Joseph B. Rose, Reforming the New York City Zoning Resolution (Apr. 20, 1999), available at http://www.tenant.net/land/zoning/unifiedbulk/reforming.html. For the proposed revisions, see New York City Dep’t of City Planning, Unified Bulk Program (Dec. 8, 1999), available at http://www.ci.ny.us/html/dcp/html/bulksum.html; New York, N.Y., Zoning Text Amendments (Feb. 14, 2000, as amended through Jan. 8, 2001), available at http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dcp/html/zone.html.
60 Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., Transect-based Neighborhood Development Code §§ 4, 8E (July 7, 2000).
61 Id. §§ 5, 8C.
62 Id.
63 Id. § 6.
64 Id. §§ 5, 8C.
65 See Toronto, Ontario, Zoning By-Law No. 438-85 § 8(3) (1994) (amended June 1997).
66 FAR, a widely used zoning device to limit density, is expressed as the ratio of a project’s total floor area to the area of the lot. Thus, a FAR of 5.0 for a 20,000 square foot lot would yield a maximum total floor area of 100,000 square feet. The shape of the project is further defined under zoning by setback and height restrictions.
67 Uniform Construction Code, Rehab. Subcode (N.J. Dep’t of Cmty. Affairs, Div. of Codes & Standards 1998), available at www.state.nj.us/dca/codes/forms/rehab/ rehabguide.htm.
68 Richard Moe, Civil Codes, Preservation, Nov./Dec. 2000, at 6.
69 See generally James H. Wickersham, Note, The Quiet Revolution Continues: The Emerging New Model for State Growth Management Statutes, 18 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 489 (1994).
70 See generally Gerrit Knapp & Arthur Nelson, The Regulated Landscape: Lessons on State Land Use Planning from Oregon (1992); Robert L. Liberty, Oregon’s Comprehensive Growth Management Program: An Implementation Review and Lessons for Other States, 22 Envtl. L. Rep. 10,367 (1992). The future of Oregon’s program is now in doubt after the November, 2000 passage, by voter initiative, of Ballot Measure 7. This measure amends the state constitution to require compensation for the adoption or enforcement of any regulation that reduces the fair market value of real property, with a narrow exception for historically recognized nuisance laws. For an interpretation of the measure’s potential effect, see Op. Att’y General No. 8277 (Feb. 13, 2001). A trial court judge has ruled the measure unconstitutional on procedural grounds. See Oregon Dep’t of Land Conservation and Dev., DLCD Measure 7 News & Information, Perspectives (last updated Feb. 27, 2000), at http://www.lcd.state.or.us/perspectives/measure7.html.
71 Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 197.175, 197.250 (Supp. 1999).
72 Id.; see Baker v. City of Milwaukie, 533 P.2d 772, 778 (Or. 1975).
73 Environmentalists tend to focus on what happens outside the UGB: the protection of farms and forests, both key parts of the state’s economy. But from an urban viewpoint, what happens inside the UGB is much more important. See Oregon Dep’t of Land Conservation and Dev., Oregon’s 19 Statewide Planning Goals and Guidelines (Feb. 2, 2001), available at http://www.lcd.state.or.us/goalhtml/goals.html.
74 Id.
75 Id. at Goal 10; see also Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 197.303, 197.312 (Supp. 1999) (stating municipalities must remove barriers to needed housing). In the Portland metropolitan region, with 1.3 million residents, half of all land zoned residential must be zoned multi-family. Or. Admin. R. 660-007-0030 (Nov. 15, 2000).
76 See Liberty, supra note 70, at 10,379.
77 The long-term plan for the Metropolitan Portland region predicts accommodating a 43% population increase over the next forty years, from 1.3 to 2 million people—with only a 7% increase in developed land, from 233,000 acres to 252,000 acres. See The Nature of 2040: The Region’s 50-year Plan for Managing Growth, Metro, June 2000, at 6.
78 Robert T. Dunphy, Transit-Oriented Development: Making a Difference?, Urb. Land, July 1995, at 32, 34–36.
79 See generally Oregon Small Cities, supra note 58.
80 Jacobs, supra note 1, at 222.