Zoned Out: Regulation, Markets, and Choices in Transportation and Metropolitan Land Use, Jonathan Levine
For much of the country, the debate over sprawl and smart growth takes the form of contrasting what people want to do - live in detached houses with large yards in the suburbs - with what people ought to do - live compactly in cities. Everyone takes this framework for granted: for good or ill, the free market drives sprawl. Opponents of sprawl decry developers and the rampant free market and call for governments to do something about it. Defenders of sprawl praise the American dream of home ownership and the free market system that makes it.
In Zoned Out, Jonathan Levine argues that everyone is wrong. In contrast to this view of the sprawl debate-market failure versus market success-what we should really be talking about is planning failure and competing regulatory schemes. In many cases, smart growth goals can be achieved not by finding new governmental interventions into the market, but by liberalizing the land use market. Levine views discussion of the free market in land use as a fool's errand: land use is one of the most highly regulated markets in the country. Zoned Out, then, is Levine's extended argument that we live in a world where sprawl is the outcome of planning failure, even though we act as if we live in a world where sprawl is the result of market failure (or, if you swing that way, market success). Levine is a transportation planner; his concern is, in part, with the way that the relationship between land uses and transportation systems are researched and the way that policy is made or fails to be made. Zoned Out is largely written from this perspective, though he claims that it should be understood synecdochally-the same points could be made in discussing environmental impact, energy use, housing policy, or obesity.
His argument attacks three traditions. First is research into the connection between transportation and land use. Second is research into the economics of land use and zoning. This strand is primarily concerned with work following Tiebout's view of the economics of public goods: households will "vote with their feet," choosing from among the many municipalities--central city, far-flung suburbs, and everything in between--the one that best suits their taste in housing consumption and provision of public goods like education, open space, and crime prevention. Third is the legal tradition treating zoning as a local property right (the right to an urban form rather than just a style of house) rather than as an exercise of the police power (regulation in pursuit of public health and welfare) delegated from the states to cities.
Why does this matter? The form that the debate takes constrains our ability to provide alternatives to sprawl. In a world where sprawl is the result of the free market, deviations from sprawl-government intervention-must be defended on the grounds of market failure and must demonstrate some level of net benefit. In a world where sprawl is the result of planning failures, on the other hand, promoting alternatives to sprawl is a matter of enabling, rather than forcing, a land use market. One good example of this is the planning that surrounds Portland's metropolitan transit stations. In order to qualify for a station, municipalities must agree to allow dense development around the stations. That is, they're not to force density (and Levine argues that ability of smart growth programs to do so where there is no market for density is non-existent), but only must not zone it out.
Unfortunately, covering the debate, and arguing for its reorientation, is so much what Zoned Out is about that Levine has little space for talking about how his alternative framework would actually work in practice. In his concluding chapter, Levine outlines three levels at which zoning reform can work. First is reform internal to municipalities, wherein cities and suburbs, on their own initiative, adopt compactness-friendly regulations, such as form-based zoning codes or through allowing bartering for density between planning commissions or neighbors and developers. Second are incentives to allow compact development offered by external bodies, such as regional transit agencies that can offer incentives for allowing more density around rail stations (or, conversely, regional bodies that have the power to withhold subsidies if localities zone out density). Third is shared responsibility for land-use regulation, creating regulatory structures that allow for some regional concerns to trump local control. This has been legislated in Oregon, where municipal plans are required to be consistent with regional growth plans; it has also been created judicially in Pennsylvania, where municipalities must allow all forms of development somewhere or risk the "builder's remedy": the right to build zoned out development anywhere.
Disclaimer: I recently graduated from the planning program which Jonathan Levine chairs, and took his transportation and land use planning class. This review should be understood as the excited ranting of a recent convert, rather than as something dispassionate or critical.
-- Allen Claxton
