Top Highlights

• In the United States, the most common means and the best-known form of land-use control is municipal zoning—the subject of Freund’s interest—although a number of other tools (e.g., design review, development agreements, subdivision controls, parking requirements) are also in play
• “Zoning entails separating the land in a particular [municipal] area into sections, or zones, with different rules governing activities on that land”
• By imposing spatial constraints on social behavior, zoning “affects the basic organization of our human environment”
• In governing our building practices, zoning solidifies in our minds what is normal and expected, decent, and desirable. It thus imposes a moral geography on our cities.
• It is no wonder that public meetings about zoning changes often spark fiery emotions, controversy, and outright anger and that in many U.S. locales such changes can be enacted only after referenda.