A Comparative Analysis of Land Use Controls

"Since the rise of the first urban centre, people have sought to control these complex creatures through various means, with mixed results. Our current method - through legal regulations, bylaws and policies - represents humanity’s most sophisticated attempt to-date. To the point that nothing about the modern city can truly be said to be chaotic in any typical sense of the word.

Through these regulations, beliefs are institutionalize and consequently fossilized through architecture, built form and other means, such as lot sizes and the distribution of open spaces. As we’ve recently come to realize, this doesn’t mean that modern cities are necessarily any “better” than its predecessors, but just controlled differently."

By comparing various techniques for controlling the urban form of cities, this article explores how policies, neighborhood densities and population distributions are affected by different zoning and land use regulations.