"[Hirt] provides a succinct overview of the history of zoning in the US. She compares zoning in the US to five European countries―England, France, Sweden, Germany, and Russia―to highlight its distinctiveness. The story of American zoning reveals its origins in the early-20th century, fashioned to maintain property values and protect Americans' investments in their homes. The book tells the story of how local, state, and federal governments have contributed to the use of zoning to preserve the single-family detached home, connecting zoning to other policies, such as transportation and home loan financing. This is a terrific book for collections on housing, land use, zoning, and law."―CHOICE
Why are American cities, suburbs, and towns so distinct? Compared to European cities, those in the United States are characterized by lower densities and greater distances; neat, geometric layouts; an abundance of green space; a greater level of social segregation reflected in space; and—perhaps most noticeably—a greater share of individual, single-family detached housing. In Zoned in the USA, Sonia A. Hirt argues that zoning laws are among the important but understudied reasons for the cross-continental differences.
Hirt shows that rather than being imported from Europe, U.S. municipal zoning law was in fact an institution that quickly developed its own, distinctly American profile. A distinct spatial culture of individualism—founded on an ideal of separate, single-family residences apart from the dirt and turmoil of industrial and agricultural production—has driven much of municipal regulation, defined land-use, and, ultimately, shaped American life.
Hirt explores municipal zoning from a comparative and international perspective, drawing on archival resources and contemporary land-use laws from England, Germany, France, Australia, Russia, Canada, and Japan to challenge assumptions about American cities and the laws that guide them.
Sonia A. Hirt is Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, Virginia Tech. She is the author of Iron Curtains: Gates, Suburbs and Privatization of Space in the Post-socialist City and coeditor most recently of The Urban Wisdom of Jane Jacobs.
Table of Contents
Introduction: An American Model of Land-Use Control1. America's Housing Trademark2. How the System Works3. How Others Do It4. Roots5. American Beginnings in a Comparative Context6. The Formative Years of American ZoningConclusion: The Promises and Paradoxes of Residential ZoningNotesReferencesIndex
What People are Saying About This
Christopher Silver
Sonia Hirt contends that America's approach to land-use control, which puts such a premium on insulating single-family homes from all other uses, is unique from most other places in the western world. American exceptionalism is effectively demonstrated in this comparative analysis. Hirt is careful not to overly judge the American system and suggests a paradox regarding our demonstrated proclivity to value individualism (as symbolized by the single-family detached house) and yet support a land-use system that so rigidly regulates how we shape our human settlements. Her sources are rich, and her access to non-U.S. sources is extremely impressive.
Jonathan Levine
This very important book represents a significant contribution to the literature on U.S. land-use regulatory practices. The comparative framework of Zoned in the USA is distinctive. It allows Sonia Hirt to identify the uniqueness of U.S. zoning in its origins, its institutional arrangement, and its physical outcome. I know of no other work that as insightfully compares U.S. practices to the international experience. Hirt shows that the U.S. approach to land-use regulation represents a historically conditioned and highly consequential set of policy decisions that constitute a fundamental break with processes of urbanization globally and throughout history.
