We welcome Nolan Gray on this week, author of the new book Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. Nolan is a city planner, scholar, and writer on all things urban. And he has it out for “zoning,” that method city planners love so much where they separate land uses from each other and end up controlling the finest details of what people get up to on their own property. He joins us for a detailed journey through zoning’s history, how humans got along for so long without it, why it creates so many more problems than it solves, and why it’s become so much worse. Further, he explains why often what we think of as “zoning” is actually something else and that there are many land-use tools cities have that would work fine without it.

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Arbitrary Lines

Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.

Nolan Gray

California YIMBY

Anthony Sanders