A Study On The History Of American Zoning

This is a review of the history of American zoning. The thesis is divided into three parts. In the first part (chapter 3), the author discussed the origin of American zoning and its popularization in the early 20th century; while the second part (chapter 4) focused on the new development of Ameican zoning after the 1920s, including new ideas, new indexes and new approaches. The final part (chapter 5) gives a systemic review of the ninety years'history of American zoning, and then tries to give some useful advice to the development of Chinese regulatory detailed planning."One may not know the planning history, but he should study planning in a historical background".In the turn of the 20th century, following the industrialization and the urbanitation, Ameican cities became denser than ever before, and this brought a lot of urban problems. After a variety of attempts, Americans finaly realized that the public control of the private land use was the only way to solve these problems. So, in 1916, the first zoning code in American planning history was adopted by the city of New York. In 1920s, the Standard Enabling Acts granted local governments the broad authority to enact a zoning code; and the landmark case of Euclid v. Ambler Realty (1926) has proved the constitutional of the zoning code. Since then, zoning has become very popular in America as a manner in which local governments control the usage of land within their respective cities, towns, etc.After the 1920s, especially after World War II, the changes of American social, economic, technical, political conditions need zoning to develop; and the limitations of the traditional zoning also need it to develop; otherwise, the expanding of the definition of the"public benifit"in the American morden law system makes it able to develop. Because of these factors, a lot of new indexes and new approaches has bring into zoning system. The Ameican zoning now has become a"hybrid"code, based on traditional Euclidean zoning, and incorporated with many new indexes and approaches. In the past ninety years, American zoning has continued to address changing social, economic, technical, political conditions and needs. So it is very unpractical to learn the skills of American zoning derictly. For Chinese regulatory detailed planning, there would be two lessons we can learn from this review. First, we should learn to understand the"definition"of American zoning. Second, we should learn what the American zoning did to deal with the urbanization and the growth of number of private cars, which had happened and will happen in china.