Death to Single-Family Zoning…and New Life to the Missing Middle

Jake Wegmann

Journal of the American Planning Association, 2020, vol. 86, issue 1, 113-119

Abstract: Planners in the United States and Canada should stop defending single-family zoning, the single most harmful widely used practice in planning. In the century since first adoption, it has exacerbated both inequality and climate change. Land use regulations that make a singly occupied, detached house on a large parcel the only allowable option should be replaced, wherever they exist, with new rules that allow medium-density, or “Missing Middle,” housing to be built by right. These changes should be applied broadly at the scale of an entire city or, best of all, a state, rather than piecemeal. Encouraging recent events in Minneapolis (MN), Oregon, and elsewhere show that single-family zoning is being seriously challenged for the first time, but more progress is needed.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2019.1651217

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