City Streets Serve As Training Ground For Form-Based Zoning

"While conventional zoning emphasizes segregated land uses, form-based codes address 'the details of relationships' among structures, between buildings and people. It also considers the scale and type of streets and blocks, according to Paul Crawford, one of the discipline's leading practitioners.

That means paying attention to things like the number of buildings on each block, their widths and depths and elevations. It also means taking note of distances between sidewalks, curbs, storefronts, entrances — and of those between lampposts, trees and planters."

The educational walking tours of downtown's George Street were part of a training program in form-based codes at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.