Form Follows Function? How America Zones

For nearly a hundred years, most urban development control in the United States has been exercised through functional zoning-a system that divides cities into blocks of land and assigns a functional class to each (e.g. residential, business, industrial). Over the last few decades, however, much attention has been focused on the need to reform the system. Reform advocates have criticized conventional zoning on economic, social and environmental grounds and have proposed a number of alternatives, including performance zoning and form-based zoning. A literature review may leave one with the impression that the old system has reached its expiration date and its alternatives are gaining speed. But research has yet to systematically examine the state of US zoning in practice . Has zoning practice caught up with emerging concepts in planning theory regarding the importance of mixed use in cities? This article attempts to help answer this question by studying zoning practice in 25 of America's largest cities. First, it introduces aggregate data on the 25 selected cities and then it discusses four case studies in greater depth (Cleveland, Fort Worth, Denver and Las Vegas). Based on the findings, the article argues that although several attempts to reform the zoning system are underway in practice, the system's core premises are yet to be fundamentally changed.