Lessons From Victorian Era Land Use Policy

In a thoroughly researched and fascinating study of urban land use in the late 19th century, Theo Mackey Pollack reminds us that the free-form land-use policy of the Victorian era created remarkable space for innovation. As he explains, "[t]he Late Victorian period in the United States—roughly the last third of the 19th century—produced some of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the history of Western civilization. It also produced some of the most hopeless slums. In response to the crisis of industrial cities, the modern discipline of city planning emerged."

Planners cleaned up much of the mess created by unregulated industry and slumlords. "By the 1920s, planners in the industrial world had established the legal authority to promulgate land-use regulations, and over the next generation, they succeeded at slowing the construction of slum housing and segregating noxious industries from incompatible activities, such as housing and office space." Yet something was lost: "Through some of the same devices, however, planners curtailed some positive features of 19th-century urbanism, including the rich variety of free-form industrial development and the adaptive responsiveness of such neighborhoods to the changing needs of a dynamic society."

Pollack concludes that today, "achieving the kind of development environment that flourished during the Late Victorian period—and spawned walkable, diverse, and architecturally rich neighborhoods—would likely require a hybrid approach. It would need to incorporate certain elements of the more liberal development landscape that existed in late Victorian urbanism. But it would also be tempered by new forms of regulation narrowly targeting modern tendencies toward sprawl and homogeneity, while preserving the advances in city planning that have been attained over the last century." It's a long read, but a fascinating crash course in 19th century land use — and how it shaped the contemporary build environment.