Abstract
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the concept of comprehensive zoning emerged in the United States as a legal method of imposing order upon unregulated urban growth. Despite formidable limitations on the extension of the police power before Euclid v. Ambler in 1926, the first comprehensive zoning ordinances were passed in New York city (1916) and Chicago (1923) where existing patterns of corporate-commercial development added complexity to the political process. This article examines how the zoning problem assumed particular dimensions in Chicago, shaped by a distinctive local geography, vested interests of an established real estate market and long-term planning objectives articulated in the 1909 Plan of Chicago. By focusing on the contentious issue of regulating building height and bulk in an established corporate-commercial district, this article illustrates how health and safety considerations were necessary to the political success of comprehensive zoning in Chicago, providing the necessary justification for the extension of the municipal police power.
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