Population control is bad medicine

The well-meaning experts have been prescribing solutions that lead to junk infrastructure and unhealthy living.

The vision statements and comprehensive plans of local planning departments make claims about public health being an important goal of theirs. Walkability is an feature of a healthy community, generally made difficult or impossible by the planning department’s own rules. Zoning was thought to be the cure for unhealthy city growth, but its legacy is junk infrastructure that keeps us isolated and dependent on personal automobiles. 

Before the formalization of zoning laws, the United States witnessed piecemeal and often informal zoning practices. One of the earliest examples of American zoning dates back to 1885 in Modesto, California, where washhouses were banned from specific areas. (It’s funny how American planning history puts our experiences as the center of the universe, when all through recorded history there are examples of certain types of land uses “zoned” to designated areas. But I digress.) 

The late 19th century was an era marked by significant transformations in American cities. Rapid urbanization, industrialization, and waves of immigration. Local governments were trying to figure out ways of addressing the chaos, and in some notorious cases, look for ways to segregate by race and class. Comprehensive land use regulations became the tool of choice. 

In 1916, the city that never sleeps or clears streets of rats, New York City, introduced a groundbreaking zoning resolution. It regulated land use and building heights with the aim of bringing order to a city teeming with progress and development. The resolution also designated specific residential districts. It clearly defined where residential and commercial properties could be developed. 

The virtuous claim was that the leaders would ensure a harmonious and functional urban environment. It came out more than a little heavy handed: “You may live here, but not there. You may conduct business here, but not there. You may eat here, but not there.”

Fast forward several decades and combine the proliferation of the personal automobile, and you’ve got a continent that drives everywhere all the time for every purpose because everything is required to be zoned out. Sprawl, the opposite of healthy infrastructure, is the law of the land. 

Land use policy—zoning in particular—is what forces, encourages, and preserves car dependency. There are 100 million new vehicles sold every year, because why wouldn't we? Personal cars are the only viable choice for most people to get from the housing zone to the work zone to the food zone and back to the housing zone. 

Whether or not 1916 city planners believed this future would come, here we are.

Medical research has shown that America’s top 10 causes of death are all made worse by our physical surroundings. In March of 2022, the CDC published a study that found more than 1 in 3 students felt persistently sad or hopeless. Almost half of adults in the United States report frequent loneliness and social isolation. More than half of the country is overweight or obese. Childhood obesity has more than doubled in the past 30 years. 

Car dependency is bad for the body and bad for the mind. It’s not the car itself, but the sedentary and isolating lifestyle that comes with the package.

Hippocrates, father of western medicine, said walking is the best medicine. 2300 years later, doctors still say he's right. Planning department heads should take a Hippocratic Oath to do no harm by reforming land use regulations in order to make walking easy and convenient. One option is to abolish the single-use zoning that outlaws mixed-use (i.e. healthy) neighborhoods.

Humans act on incentives. It’s not enough to know about history if we’re going to design neighborhoods that make healthy choices the easy choices for people. We’ve got to train our eyes to watch for outcomes, intended or unintended. Or as the Chinese philosopher said:

"When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals; abolish zoning."

—Confucius

There are reasons to be hopeful. There’s a growing number of local governments that have taken steps to abolish exclusionary zoning. 

In recent years, a number of cities and states have passed legislation or taken executive action to promote more inclusive and equitable zoning policies. Oregon passed a law that effectively eliminated single-family zoning in cities with populations over 10,000. Now it’s going to be legal to build duplexes, triplexes, and other missing middle housing types. Similar efforts are underway in other states, including California, Minnesota, and Virginia.

The hardest part about designing healthy places seems to be the inability of experts to understand that one of their “greater good” tools, zoning, has led to a junk infrastructure and unhealthy lifestyles. You can help your local leaders be heroes by sharing examples of reform happening in peer cities and states around the country. The internet is amazing. Open a browser and get to work!