Zoned Out
Regulation, Markets, and Choices in Transportation and Metropolitan Land Use
Jonathan Levine

"This book introduces a new and important dimension into the debate about the causes and results of urban sprawl. Levine argues persuasively that extensive single-family residential zoning is a constraint on the exercise of a free market in real estate development and that denser urban development would result from a more open market. Levine very convincingly shows the inconsistency in the 'free market' arguments of some of the anti-smart growth critics. . . . This book could become an intellectual benchmark in the ongoing discussion of American land-use patterns." --Martin Wachs, University of California, Berkeley

"Jonathan Levine forcefully demonstrates as groundless the belief that compact development must prove its transportation and other benefits before it is permitted as legitimate. That view implicitly accepts the status quo of low-density development as "normal" or "privileged" until proven otherwise. In reality, the existing laws that spawn sprawling development are distortions of market forces that restrict the housing and living style choices of millions of American households. Leaving powers over land-use planning solely in the hands of parochial local governments will forever enshrine exclusionary zoning and prevent affordable housing from becoming more widespread."
--Anthony Downs, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Table of Contents and
Chapter One

Hardcover: $68.00
ISBN 1-933115-14-9

Paper: $28.95
ISBN 1-933115-15-7

Researchers have responded to urban sprawl, congestion, and pollution by assessing alternatives such as smart growth, new urbanism, and transit-oriented development. Underlying this has been the presumption that, for these options to be given serious consideration as part of policy reform, science has to prove that they will reduce auto use and increase transit, walking, and other physical activity. Zoned Out forcefully argues that the debate about transportation and land-use planning in the United States has been distorted by a myth?the myth that urban sprawl is the result of a free market. According to this myth, low-density, auto-dependent development dominates U.S. metropolitan areas because that is what Americans prefer. 

Jonathan Levine confronts the free market myth by pointing out that land development is already one of the most regulated sectors of the U.S. economy. Noting that local governments use their regulatory powers to lower densities, segregate different types of land uses, and mandate large roadways and parking lots, he argues that the design template for urban sprawl is written into the land-use regulations of thousands of municipalities nationwide. These regulations and the skewed thinking that underlies current debate mean that policy innovation, market forces, and the compact-development alternatives they might produce are often "zoned out" of metropolitan areas.

In debunking the market myth, Levine articulates an important paradigm shift. Where people believe that current land-use development is governed by a free-market, any proposal for policy reform is seen as a market intervention and a limitation on consumer choice, and any proposal carries a high burden of scientific proof that it will be effective. By reorienting the debate, Levine shows that the burden of scientific proof that was the lynchpin of transportation and land-use debates has been misassigned, and that, far from impeding market forces or limiting consumer choice, policy reform that removes regulatory obstacles would enhance both. A groundbreaking work in urban planning, transportation and land-use policy, Zoned Out challenges a policy environment in which scientific uncertainty is used to reinforce the status quo of sprawl and its negative consequences for people and their communities.

Author Bio

Jonathan Levine is associate professor and chair of the Urban and Regional Planning Program in the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.

Additional Book Reviews

"Zoned Out is a long overdue correction to the notion that alternatives to sprawl are anti-market. Levine demonstrates that the opposite is true: sprawl is mandated by public policy and frustrates an increasingly diverse market. The justification for smart growth, then, is as much to break the stranglehold of existing low-density zoning as it is to create positive environmental and transportation outcomes."--Peter Calthorpe, Calthorpe Associates

"Zoned Out is a well-informed, intelligent assessment of the role of zoning in shaping metropolitan form. Jonathan Levine argues persuasively that planners must realize that urban form is as much the product of government intervention as private activity. Scholars of urban land use from all disciplines will profit from this readable book." --William A. Fischel, Dartmouth College

"Provocative and informative. Levine shows that currently restrictive, exclusive, low-density zoning regulations interfere in the private market, inefficiently and inequitably restricting the housing, neighborhood, and transportation choices of households."--John Pucher, Rutgers University

"Zoned Out is a stunning work that demonstrates that rigid, hyper-regulation of land by dozens of warring municipalities in a single housing and employment market creates enormous harm to individuals, communities, regions - and to free and open markets."
--Myron Orfield, University of Minnesota