Local Planning and Zoning

Abstract

This chapter maintains that local zoning never really declined except in the perception of commentators on the land use scene. The “ancien régime” of land use controls is not only alive but increasingly robust even after decades of neglect. Cities—where the vast majority of people live and work, and thus where land use decisions most directly affect the public’s way of life—never abandoned zoning. While states and federal agencies may have promoted regional and statewide land use management and control systems as an added layer of control upon local governments, these were in addition to rather than a substitute for local zoning. In a sense, then, the ancien régime was not overthrown but circumscribed with the exception of Hawaiʻi, which chose to zone the entire state in 1961 through its Land Use Law.