Origins and history of zoning[edit]

The origins of zoning districts can be traced back to antiquity.[11] The ancient walled city was the
predecessor for classifying and regulating land, based on use. Outside the city walls were the
undesirable functions, which were usually based on noise and smell; that was also where the
poorest people lived. The space between the walls is where unsanitary and dangerous activities
occurred such as butchering, waste disposal, and brick-firing. Within the walls were civic and
religious places, and where the majority of people lived. [12]
Beyond distinguishing between urban and non-urban land, most ancient cities further classified land
types and uses inside their walls. This was practiced in many regions of the world – for example, in
China during the Zhou Dynasty (1046 – 256 BC), in India during the Vedic Era (1500 – 500 BC), and
in the military camps that spread throughout the Roman Empire (31 BC – 476 AD). Because
residential districts made up the majority of cities, early forms of districting were usually along ethnic
and occupational divides; generally, class or status diminished from the city centre outward. One
legal form of enforcing this was the caste system.[12]
While space was carved out for important public institutions, places of worship, retail stores, markets
and squares, there is one major distinction between cities of antiquity and today. Throughout
antiquity, up until the onset of the Industrial Revolution (1760–1840), most work took place within the
home. Therefore, residential areas also functioned as places of labor, production, and commerce.
The definition of home was tied to the definition of economy, which caused a much greater mixing of
uses within the residential quarters of cities.[13]
Throughout the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, cultural and socio-economic shifts led to
the rapid increase in the enforcement and invention of urban regulations. [12] The shifts were informed
by a new scientific rationality, the advent of mass production and complex manufacturing, and the
subsequent onset of urbanization. Industry leaving the home reshaped modern cities.
Overcrowding, pollution, and the urban squalor associated with factories were major concerns that
led city officials and planners to consider the need for functional separation of uses. France,
Germany, and Britain are where pseudo-zoning was invented to prevent polluting industries to be
built in residential areas. Early uses of modern zoning were seen in Germany in the late-19th
century.[14]

Types[edit]
There are a great variety of zoning types, some of which focus on regulating building form and the
relation of buildings to the street with mixed uses, known as form-based, others with separating land
uses, known as use-based, or a combination thereof. Use-based zoning systems can comprise
single-use zones, mixed-use zones - where a compatible group of uses are allowed to co-exist - or a
combination of both single and mixed-use zones in one system.

Single-use zoning[edit]
See also: Single-family zoning
Example of single-use zoning (Greater Winnipeg District Map, 1947)

Single-use zoning is where only one kind of use is allowed per zone. Known as Euclidean zoning in
North America because of a court case in Euclid, Ohio, which established its constitutionality, Village
of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. 272 U.S. 365 (1926), it has been the dominant system of zoning
in North America since its first implementation.
Commonly defined single-use zones include: residential, mixed residential-commercial, commercial,
industrial and spatial (e. g. power plants, sports complexes, airports, shopping malls etc.). Each
category can have a number of sub-categories, for example, within the commercial category there
may be separate zones for small-retail, large retail, office use, lodging and others, while industrial
may be subdivided into heavy manufacturing, light assembly and warehouse uses. In Germany,
each category has a designated limit for noise emissions (not part of the building code, but federal
emissions code).
In the United States or Canada, for example, residential zones can have the following sub-
categories:

1. Residential occupancies containing sleeping units where the occupants are primarily
transient in nature, including: boarding houses, hotels, motels.
2. Residential occupancies containing sleeping units or more than two dwelling
units where the occupants are primarily permanent in nature, including: apartment
houses, convents, dormitories.
3. Residential occupancies where the occupants are primarily permanent in nature and
not classified as Group R-1, R-2, R-4 or I[clarification needed], including: buildings that do not
contain more than two dwelling units, adult care facilities for five or fewer persons for
less than 24 hours.
4. Residential occupancies where the buildings are arranged for occupancy as
residential care/assisted living facilities including more than five but not more than 16
occupants.
History[edit]
Separation between uses is a feature of many planned cities designed before the advent of zoning.
A notable example is Adelaide in South Australia, whose city centre, along with the suburb of North
Adelaide, is surrounded on all sides by a park, the Adelaide Park Lands. The park was designed
by Colonel William Light in 1836 in order to physically separate the city centre from its suburbs. Low
density residential areas surround the park, providing a pleasant walk between work in the city within
and the family homes outside.
Aerial view of Chatswood, Australia, looking toward Sydney. The boundaries between low density residential,
commercial and industrial zones are clearly visible.

Sir Ebenezer Howard, founder of the garden city movement, cited Adelaide as an example of how
green open space could be used to prevent cities from expanding beyond their boundaries and
coalescing.[15]: 94  His design for an ideal city, published in his 1902 book Garden Cities of To-morrow,
envisaged separate concentric rings of public buildings, parks, retail space, residential areas and
industrial areas, all surrounded by open space and farmland. All retail activity was to be conducted
within a single glass-roofed building, an early concept for the modern shopping centre inspired
by the Crystal Palace. [15]: 4 
However, these planned or ideal cities were static designs embodied in a single masterplan. What
was lacking was a regulatory mechanism to allow the city to develop over time, setting guidelines to
developers and private citizens over what could be built where. This came in 1916, when New York
City enacted the first city-wide zoning ordinance. [16]
The application of single-use zoning has led to the distinctive form of many cities in the United
States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in which a very dense urban core, often
containing skyscrapers, is surrounded by low density residential suburbs, characterised by
large gardens and leafy streets. Some metropolitan areas such as Minneapolis–St Paul, the San
Francisco Bay Area, and Sydney have several such cores.
Criticisms[edit]
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Environmental activists argue that putting everyday uses out of walking distance of each other leads
to an increase in traffic, since people have to own cars in order to live a normal life where their basic
human needs are met, and get in their cars and drive to meet their needs throughout the day.
Single-use zoning and urban sprawl have also been criticized as making work–family balance more
difficult to achieve, as greater distances need to be covered in order to integrate the different life
domains.[17] These issues are especially acute in the United States, with its high level of car
usage[18] combined with insufficient or poorly maintained urban rail and metro systems.[19]
Euclidean zoning has been described[by whom?] as a functionalist way of thinking that uses mechanistic
principles to conceive of the city as a fixed machine. This conception is in opposition to the view of
the city as a continually evolving organism or living system, as first espoused by the German
urbanist Hans Reichow.