January 18, 2025 • 51 mins
Our guest is Sara Bronin a Mexican-American architect and attorney whose interdisciplinary research focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places. She is the author of Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World, and she founded and directs the National Zoning Atlas, which aims to digitize, demystify, and democratize information about zoning in the United States. She has advised the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Sustainable Development Code, has served on the board of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, and founded Desegregate Connecticut. Previously, she led the award-winning, unanimously adopted overhaul of the zoning code and city plan of Hartford, Connecticut. Bronin holds a juris doctor from Yale Law School, a master of science from the University of Oxford (Rhodes Scholar), as well as a B.Arch. and B.A. from the University of Texas–Austin.
In podcast extra / culture corner Sara recommends ‘Climate Change and Historic Preservation
‘ (Sept 2024) https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2024555212/2024555212.pdf. Jess recommends the Martha Stewart documentary on Netflix (https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81479059) and Pete recommends two books and making omelettes. Episode released 19 January 2025.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This podcast is supported by VPLA.
Victorian PlanningEnvironmental Law Association.
Welcome to the Planning Exchangewhere we interview built environment
professionals who are doinginteresting work beyond the ordinary.
I'm Jess Noonan and I'm joinedby my colleague Peter Jewell.
Today we're lucky enough tobe speaking with Sarah Bronin.
(00:20):
Sarah knows zoning as wellas any expert in the country.
A former Rhodes Scholar, she'sa professor of law and urban
planning at Cornell University.
She grew up in Houston, famously thecountry's largest city without zoning,
and splits her time between Washington DCand Hartford, Connecticut, whose zoning
code she led the efforts to overhaul.
Welcome to the show, Sarah.
(00:42):
Thank you so much forhaving me, Jess and Peter,
can you give our listeners a backgroundas to how you got to where you are,
both education and work history.
So I started off my college career, Iguess, going to architecture school.
And in the US, it's a five yeardegree that leads to the professional.
(01:03):
Licensing for architecture.
So I did the five year Bachelor ofArchitecture, then I went to England
for two years and did a master'sdegree in history and came back to
the States at Yale to do a law degree.
So 10 years of straight schooling.
I started after that as a professorof law focused on land use law and
(01:24):
actually historic preservation lawwas my first class that I taught and
they prepared the materials for thatand eventually wrote a book on that.
But I've been focused, both inmy professorial work as well as
consulting and public service on thevery questions that are covered by
this book, really how do our laws.
(01:45):
Make or not make beautiful,sustainable and equitable cities.
Congratulations on the book, Sarah,which is just about to be released, I
think which we're recording now in lateNovember your book key to the city,
how zoning shapes our world in that youexplore how power structures shape cities.
(02:05):
Can you explain why understandingthese power dynamics is essential
for city planners and city managers?
Well, so thinking about howzoning and land use rules get
enacted at the local level, it isinherently a political process.
You look at, mayors leading zoningreforms or city councils, negotiating
(02:28):
with individual developers or evenstate legislatures as they, intervene
in local zoning, which is their rightbecause the power to zone in the U.
S.
comes from state governments.
I do think understanding how politics andinstitutions come into play in developing
our land use rules is really important.
(02:49):
And that's why I start the bookwith a bit of a history of zoning
in the US which really speaks to.
The federal government's role actuallyand in jump starting zoning as it's
practiced today, and then also now therole of states, which about 100 years
ago all adopted these state zoningenabling acts and now at the local
(03:10):
level, we actually don't know how manylocal governments have zoning in the U.
S.
I'm working on that in another projectcalled the National Zoning Atlas, but
again, those power dynamics are reallyimportant because they help explain
why we have the roles that we have.
Now, Sarah, when you startedyour architecture degree, did you
anticipate or foresee, how youwould end up working in this field?
(03:34):
Working across botharchitecture planning and law.
I did.
In fact, I applied to law school fromarchitecture school and only deferred
to go to Oxford, but I knew that evenin school, when we were told, go out
and design these beautiful projectsor this new house in this hypothetical
(03:54):
lot or a library or a fire station, wedidn't really have any constraints as
architecture students, and that just.
Fundamentally struck me asGreat for innovative design,
but maybe not so realistic.
And so I took a special interest in theclasses that touched on legal topics.
(04:15):
And one of those was a professionalpractice class that touched on
topics like contracts that youmight make as an architect with
a contractor or a consultant andalso touched a bit on zoning.
So I think for me,understanding land use laws.
And building codes and someof the other things that I've
studied in my career is really anoutgrowth of architecture school.
(04:39):
I knew very well, even then that Ineeded to understand these rules to
understand how cities actually get built.
Sarah, the title of the book is Key tothe City, How Zoning Shapes Our World.
What brought you to the conceptof a key of, you know, the key?
(04:59):
Well, I think zoning affects everythingthat happens in, I guess I would
even say almost the entire country,the populated areas of the country.
We do see places.
Primarily rural areas, although it'sjust pointed out the top Houston.
Also, a large city that does nothave zoning, but most large cities,
(05:20):
suburbs, you know, relativelyreasonably populated counties.
They have this power to zone.
And I think it's both at the local leveland at an aggregate scale with all of
these local decisions kind of adding up.
You see how important zoning is to theeconomy to society to our environment.
(05:48):
To transportation patterns and housing,you know, and a lot of the things that
have those things I focus on in the book.
Sarah, you're obviouslytalking to two planners here.
And we've both really onlygot urban planning experience.
I don't think you'd have anything elsespecifically, Pete, that you've studied.
Um, but what struck meis really interesting.
(06:08):
Reading through the book wasthat comment that you made about.
And the, the reference in thebook about Houston, not having
any zoning that blows my mind.
And I don't know too much aboutplanning in the States and I
haven't actually been there.
So we'd love to understanda little bit more from you
about how that actually works.
And is that a good thing or a bad thing?
(06:30):
In the book, I argue that the absence ofzoning in Houston is problematic because
the city a lot more on private rules.
They call them covenants in the US.
I'm not sure.
Um, you know, if that,that translates over, but
we have the same thing.
So we, we call themrestrictive covenants here.
(06:52):
Yeah.
So, so great.
And so you, so these arerecorded on individual deeds
and constrain future owners.
So in lots of places, you mightnot have covenants because you have
zoning or you have other rules thatare in place in Houston, where land
is regulated from a use perspective.
(07:13):
It's regulated through covenants,many of which are decades and decades
old sometimes over 100 years old,and a lot of which really constrain
the way the city grows and develops.
So that's an over reliance onprivate rules on the one hand.
On the other hand, you see a city where,people, especially, residents with
(07:33):
housing, located in floodplain areas orin areas that are prone to sea level rise.
A lot of these areas are hitrepeatedly by weather events.
And if we had zoning, we might not beputting housing there in the first place.
And then overall from the city'sgrowth, and sort of managing,
managing growth, making sure thatthe city is, is beautiful, which is
(07:57):
something that zoning can achieve.
You just don't see that in Houston.
And you don't see a city thatreally has much orderly development.
So one of my favorite.
Land uses that I used to site, althoughthe land uses switched over in recent
years, but it was an adult use shopthat was very prominently located in the
(08:17):
parking lot of a very fancy shopping mall.
You had in my house where I, my apartment,where I grew up right across the street,
there was a gas station, a self storagefacility, a strip mall, and a nightclub.
And so as land use planners, you knowthat that doesn't necessarily make a
(08:37):
ton of sense in a neighborhood wherethere's a lot of families with young kids.
So I guess Houston, to me, makes thecase for zoning and the absence of
it has different dimensions acrossa lot of different areas, but,
is something that I hope readers.
Uh, can understand in the bookand just for context, Houston
(08:58):
is a sprawling city, too.
So it has annexed land outside ofcity limits, um, many different
across decades, actually.
And the city is about 500 square miles.
That is enormous.
Um, so I think, again, that kindof explains what's going on in
Houston and the dynamics there.
(09:19):
And Sarah, just, just in terms of thecovenants, because as we mentioned
before, that, that does translateinto Australian property law as well.
Presumably, and this is the casein Australia, trying to remove
or amend or change a restrictivecovenant on someone's title is a very
Convoluted and extensive process.
(09:40):
I would imagine that it's fairlysimilar with the covenants that
you're referring to, which thereforemakes it really difficult to, say
any evolution of, of those laws.
I think a great example of that isone I use in the book about my uncle's
property that he purchased, and ithad a covenant on there that said that
(10:00):
you could not use this property foranything other than residential uses.
And it was in fact still a historichome shaped like a home, but what had
happened over time is that particularstreet had become a commercial street.
So in violation of the restrictivecovenant, all of these businesses were
operating up and down the street inthese historic houses as businesses.
(10:22):
Now he wanted to expand his veterinaryclinic, which was in another historic
house on the other side of the streetinto the property that he purchased.
And a neighbor essentially lodged acomplaint with the city, which sent
him down this deep rabbit hole oflegal issues and city lawsuits and and
(10:45):
more costing him tens of thousands ofdollars, whereas zoning code, which
could change in response to changeconditions much easier than a restrictive
covenant, you know, would have justhad him going to the office filing
for 100 permit and calling it a day.
So the restrictive covenant, theunchangeability of those, you're right.
(11:05):
It's very difficult to change.
The usually involves a court process.
And in my uncle's case, theinflexibility of the restrictive
covenant really speaks to, the need formore rational rules that affect land.
And Sarah, just out of interest isthat process, you know, is it months?
Is it years long to change a covenant?
(11:28):
It's not only lengthy, and I wouldsay probably more in the span of years
than months, just given the way thecourt system works, so it's, it's
lengthy and expensive, but there's notnecessarily a guarantee of success.
In most states, the property law rulesrequire you to show often some kind of
hardship, some kind of significantlychanged conditions, which I think my
(11:49):
uncle could have shown in that case.
It might involve, some proofof changes in the land itself.
And so it's not a slam dunk even whenyou ask to remove a restrictive covenant.
Well, Sarah, I'm goingto stand up for Houston.
I've never been to Texas.
I've been to other parts ofthe States, but I think it's
(12:10):
great to have a place like that.
So you can compare it to thedefault, the standard, um, the
standard situation with zoning.
Do you take any truck with whatI'm saying that it's good to have,
uh, uh, exceptions so you can testtheories and things like that.
(12:31):
Well, I do like the counterfactual.
So it is helpful to have acounterfactual given that so much
of the country does have zoning.
On the other hand, for the people actuallyliving in Houston, the counterfactual,
it's not an abstract concept, right?
They're, they're sort of affected.
On the ground in their daily liveswith the maybe just disorderly
(12:53):
situation that you have there.
As I point out in the book, Houston doeshave some controls on land development so
it does have minimum parking requirementsand minimum lot sizes and other maybe what
you might call lot and lot restrictions.
But beyond that it is fairly limitedso you're right it does provide a
(13:14):
great counterfactual for us to use.
And in fact, Houston has been studiedby lots of different scholars.
And Sarah, in your book, you provide achronological history of land use zoning.
And I learned a lot, how thatevolution of the controls came about.
Important is this, and you might haveto help me out here, use a lead, lead in
(13:37):
zoning case named after a city in Ohio.
Can you talk a little about thesignificance of that court decision?
I think it was in the 1920sand what that put in train.
Okay.
And.
Please pronounce my terriblepronunciation as well.
It is the Village of Euclidversus Ambler Realty.
(13:57):
As you point out, it's a 1926case, and it was a very significant
case because at the time thepractice of zoning was fairly new.
It was a case that wentall the way up to the U.
S.
Supreme Court, and the question inthe case was, It was essentially
whether zoning was legal, whetherit was something that was consistent
(14:18):
with local government's police powers.
The Supreme Court said yes, of courseit did, because otherwise we wouldn't
have zoning as we have it today.
And from there, zoning really took offin communities all across the country.
The way that people refer to the oldschool way that the Euclid zoning
(14:39):
ordinance is structured, so a pyramidalzoning scheme, is called Euclidean zoning.
So you were close enough, but ithas nothing to do with geometry.
Everything to do with the fact thatthis tiny little village, decided to,
or was the subject of this zoning suit.
And Sarah, your book outlines why it'simportant to study the historical origins
(15:01):
and motivations behind early zoning.
And obviously we've just spokenabout the Euclidean case there.
Do you agree with that and how is itbest for people to go about undertaking
that research and why is it important?
I do think we should look backat zoning's origin story, and
I do touch on that in the book.
And I would say, again, probablyabout 100 years ago is when
(15:24):
zoning really started to take off.
You had the Euclid case, you hadthe federal government, the U.
S.
Department of Commerce playing arole in actually drafting a state
model Zoning Enabling Act, whichall the states eventually adopted.
The history, though, I think is, whileit's important, and while we should
(15:45):
look back, especially at zoning'smore racist justifications, I think
we also need to do a lot more thinkingabout what zoning is today and how
it can be reshaped for the future.
So the context in some ways again, veryimportant, provides some information
(16:07):
about why we went about adopting zoningin the first place, how it spread,
what motivated it, but I almost feellike zoning has been so stale and so
many communities for so many years.
That what we really need to dois take stock of where we are
right now and use that as thestarting point to, to move forward.
I tend to feel that, you know, thinkingtoo much about the origins kind of chains
(16:34):
us to that past and those dialoguesrather than unleashing the opportunity
that zoning provides, which is whatI hope my book tries to tries to do.
Sarah, on that point, a lot of times,modern thinking or contemporary thinking
is a bit conceited because It assumesthat people who made decisions previously
(16:57):
in other times weren't as smart as us.
Um, and by studying those originsand also the progression of zoning
and sort of what went wrong.
Don't we gain some insights to, I know thecircumstances were different then, but.
They were very smart people who broughtthese controls in and who managed
(17:19):
them, and sometimes it went wrong.
Do you think there's some valuein that sort of appreciation?
That, um, learning from what they didwrong or what we now know they did wrong?
Sorry.
It's a clumsy question.
Well, I think you're getting at somethingimportant, though, which is if we do look
(17:41):
back and we think about those motivationsand the types of provisions they put in
place, what can we learn about how zoningis endured today and how it should change?
And I think one of the key thingsthat we can learn when we look back is
that there were so many instances of.
People just copycatting one code from oneplace to the next, the state enabling laws
(18:08):
being translated almost word for word fromone state to the next, taken from that U.
S.
Department of Commerce guide, and thenjust not changed or barely changed or
changed wholesale in a way that wasdeeply problematic and that we would
know today based on planning researchand understandings about how humans
(18:30):
interact with their environment thatwe would never decide to build today.
If we knew back then when the wave ofzoning that swept Zoning reforms that
swept cities in the 1950s would leadto a car oriented culture that made
us all chain to our cars in the US,many of us anyway, for the rest of
(18:52):
our lives and for generations to come.
I think we may not have made thosemistakes, but at that time we thought,
Oh, the car is such a great idea.
So I guess what I would say isthat one of the things I do push
in the book is to try to make sure.
That we are reinvestigating zoning, thatwe are reinterrogating the zoning laws
and the books, and not just sitting therecopying from one code to the next, making
(19:14):
the same unfounded assumptions in somecases, and really trying to be innovative.
So that's where I wouldland on that question,
I feel like a lot of cities acrossthe world grapple with this idea
about, whether zoning should beYou know, state and place specific,
or whether or not there's value inhaving national approaches to zoning.
(19:35):
Do you have a view on this?
I think in part because there's so muchconvergence in so many codes, in many
ways we do have national consensus onhow zoning should go now and I think that
consensus Is based on some assumptionsand based on some ideas, at least that
that might have been relevant in thepast, but are for many Americans no
(19:57):
longer relevant, namely the assumptionthat we all want to live and single
family only residential areas where wehave to drive everywhere that that is
what American zoning primarily requires.
Well, so that's very similar towhat we've got here in Australia.
So, that car based, suburban, modelis very much entrenched here as well.
(20:18):
So very similar parallels.
I mean, we're starting to see a lotof difference in that system, um,
evolving through particularly in ourcity areas, but I think certainly for
our suburbs and our regional areas,that would certainly still be the case.
You also cite examplesof Hartford in your book.
Can you tell our listeners alittle bit about Hartford and
(20:41):
your relationship with the town?
And we note that you dedicated thebook to the people of Hartford,
so there must be something there.
Oh, yes.
I spent seven years as chair of thecity's, planning and zoning commission.
For your listeners, around theworld, Hartford is the capital
city of Connecticut, which is astate in New England, one of the
oldest states in the country.
(21:01):
Hartford was founded in 1635, longbefore the establishment of the U.
S.
as a country.
And for that reason, it's a historicalcity, it's a compact city, it is
filled with amazing neighborhoods.
But like many cities in the U.
S., it also Has suffered from the ebbsand flows of economic development,
(21:28):
and in particular, Hartford usedto be an industrial capital with
lots of large factories everywhere.
And those factories have gone intodisuse and, you know, as a result,
changes in interest in peopleliving in central cities as well.
The city of Hartford hasseen a lot of disinvestment.
(21:50):
And has had a lot of buildingsand neighborhoods that have seen
population loss and consequently,the underutilization of buildings.
So I guess I would say Hartford is partof a group of post industrial cities that
has struggled as manufacturing in the U.
S.
has waned a bit, and for that reason,it makes it a very interesting place
(22:14):
to have worked on zoning, which in myview has the potential to help people.
revive communities like Hartford,and which I tried to work towards
in my role as chair of thePlanning and Zoning Commission.
Sarah, how's it going now?
From when you started, is therea renaissance in Hartford?
Are things turning the right way?
(22:36):
I hope so.
I am no longer chair of thePlanning and Zoning Commission.
I stepped down in 2021.
But since there's certainlybeen new development.
There's been development thatfollows the rules we set out in
the zoning code, including as ofright housing related development.
And no minimum parking requirementsand a form based code that helps us to
(23:00):
get rid of some of the strip malls andcar washes and car oriented development
generally that we saw across the city.
And I hope that will continue asdevelopment proposals happen and as
things get built and rehabilitatedand as uses and these older factories
change that all of that continuesto contribute to Hartford's rise.
(23:23):
And I'm very optimistic about Hartfordand cities like it I think a creative
approach to zoning, as I cover in thebook across several similar cities
including Baltimore, Maryland, that thoseideas can help to revive this particular
kind of city post industrial city.
It's great.
Jess that Sarah's got that.
(23:45):
Hands on experience, lived experience ofmanaging, you know, overseeing zoning.
And I'm sure Sarah that helpedtremendously with the book.
Absolutely.
You can see Hartford and the stories ofHartford residents and business owners
in several of the chapters in the book.
And in fact, I wouldconsider Hartford to be.
(24:07):
An anchor across the book and acrossthe different chapters and I could
have maybe written an entire book justabout the Hartford zoning code and
the changes there, but my publishersaid, maybe people would be interested
in hearing about other cities too.
You've sold the place very well.
I'm keen to visit next timeI go to the States, Sarah.
And you can keep that foryour next book, Sarah.
(24:31):
And throughout Key to the Cityare examples of zoning done well.
And badly, examples that given asit relates to downtown music and all
creators, for example, Nashville andAustin, why did you go, you know, why
did you take this approach of usingexamples like that and what were
those examples, what did they give us?
(24:54):
Well, I think having differentexamples and stories of cities and
neighborhoods in the book helps to ground.
What could have been a very dry,technical, theoretically oriented, book.
And so I look at the books thatI've written before, which include
legal treatises and textbooksand very technical articles.
(25:19):
And that is never going tocapture the attention of people.
an audience that doesn't already havea reason to pick up a text like that.
I tried to write this book in a way thatwould be interesting to a lot of different
kinds of people, not just lawyers, notjust planners, but people who might be
(25:41):
curious about the role of zoning and mightwant to understand how it does shape our
world, I guess, as the subtitle suggests.
But, that's why I tried to use thestories of individual neighborhoods and
by and large places where I have been.
The only place in the book I think Ihaven't been, but was just too obvious for
me to not include was Las Vegas, Nevada.
(26:04):
So maybe some of yourlisteners have been there.
And in that part of the book,I write about aesthetics and
signage, very specifically.
Now, Sarah, in the book, you saydone wrong zoning can take us to past
mistakes, acting as an invisible dragon our aspirations, but done right.
Zoning can be a revolutionaryvehicle for transforming place.
(26:25):
Now, how do we ensure, I guess,that the way that we're currently
doing zoning doesn't lead topoor outcomes in our future?
Is it about education?
Is it about, or how do weeducate, I guess, our state
representatives, our localrepresentatives and even the plan is.
working in the system?
(26:46):
How do we ensure that we don'tmake the same mistakes of the past?
Well, nothing ensures that we won'tmake mistakes, but I think we have
enough information to know how somestandard zoning provisions, including
large minimum lot sizes and minimumparking requirements, have hurt
(27:10):
The development of our communities.
So I kind of feel like we have enoughinformation to make decisions about
how to unravel or how to modify certaincommon provisions and zoning, and we
should move forward on those changes.
At the local level or at thestate level, whichever one seems
to be most politically feasible.
(27:31):
We also have, I think, the benefit ofa growing body of research on zoning
and its impacts a growing understandingof within the planning act within
planning academia within architecture.
Within historic preservation that zoningdoes play a really important role.
So I do think that really interrogatingzoning, using the data and the research
(27:57):
that's already been published, that we canreally move forward, even if some mistakes
might be made, because most times.
The status quo is going to be worsethan some of the things again that we
know from experience from research fromdata have a chance of being successful.
(28:19):
Sarah, the zoning system has itscritics and, and fair enough,
it also has its supporters.
What successes do you think, how doyou rate it over the last 100 years?
It's a very tough question, but doyou give it, like a six out of 10?
Do you give it a four out of 10?
(28:40):
Oh, gosh.
Sorry, Sarah.
It's a, it's a.
Can I read
it?
I don't even know if I can read it.
I mean, in many cases, it's a.
Zero or one out of 10, but
in other cases, in terms of segregating,you mentioned the Houston example
of sort of a real mix of land uses.
So it has achieved, some good, it'sachieved a number of good things by
(29:03):
segregating and presumably improvedresidential amenity standards in some case
by segregating the uses that aren't great.
Um, where am I goingwith this question, Jess?
Help me out.
But, so, Sarah, it's veryunfair, so you can't rate it.
Uh, in some cases good, some cases bad.
(29:23):
I think that sums it up and I would sayan unfortunate number of bad cases and
maybe even a majority of land that couldbe more flexible in the way that it's
owned and that a majority of land thatis zoned for single family only single
family residential large lot zoning.
(29:43):
All of those places representopportunities in my view to move in
a different direction to understandcommunity needs and again to
really question, is the zoning codeworking the way it was intended
to work and what can we do better.
And in terms of the audiencefor this book, Sarah, who are
you targeting specifically?
(30:06):
I want anybody who's curious aboutthe way that their neighborhood
or their city has developed to beinterested enough in the idea of
zoning that they pick up this book.
So as I said before, you know, it's nota book that I, that I just wanted lawyers
to read or just wanted planners to read.
It's a book that I feel like.
Everybody should have an interest inand so part of, the part of why I'm
(30:29):
so glad to be on your show is that ithopefully reaches a few more people and
entices them to pick up the book andexplore this more expansive idea about
what zoning is and what zoning can do.
But I want to maybe even somaybe another obvious audience,
people who are involved in localgovernment planning commissioners.
(30:52):
neighborhood activists and leaders, theenvironmental movement, transportation
advocates, of course, housing advocates.
We've talked a lot about zoning in the U.
S.
as it relates to housing, but I do wantto bring in some of these other groups,
and that's why I include a chapteron environmental issues, a chapter on
(31:13):
transportation, because I think peopledon't think enough about the cumulative
impacts of zoning on these groups.
Sarah, I found your book very enjoyable.
And the examples you cite reallybring the issues to the forefront.
The zoning system isjust there, you write to
improve the analysis and understandingof it , is there, have you
(31:38):
come across viable alternatives?
or is it just a case ofmaking it work better?
A number of questions in that, sorry.
I think it's the latter.
I think it's, let's take what we haveand try to make it work better because
humans have always tried to ordertheir communities through some kind
of land use and building regulations
(32:00):
so we kind of always come backto something like zoning, when we
organize our cities going back toRoman planning and the other city
states all throughout history, we'veseen again that that sort of ordering,
and I don't think you can escape.
That, that at some point humans want that.
(32:23):
And even, you know, Houston asideand very rural areas in the U.
S.
aside, many of which don't havezoning, you do, again, you do see
that impulse as soon as you startgetting any critical massive density.
So I do think it's a matter ofmaking it work better rather than
just tossing zoning out, uh, andtrying to find something different.
Eventually we'd comeback to zoning itself.
(32:47):
Sarah, I think this wasyour first book, it?
I've had a few, as I mentioned,legal treatises and textbooks,
but this was the first one that isaimed towards a non legal audience.
Yeah, sure.
So what did you, what was differentabout those processes and what did
you learn about this process and whatsurprised you about creating the book?
(33:07):
It really pushed me out of my comfortzone in terms of being a legal
scholar and being a technical expert.
So one of the things that I learned was.
That I have.
a lot to learn when it comes to creating abook that's story based and people based.
And I guess I've, written about placesbefore, but this is really getting into
(33:30):
deep, deep history and explanation ofhow places came to be and every city
that I, include in the book, I dida deep dive on how it developed and
how a particular neighborhood withinit developed and the dynamics there.
And so I think that all of thatresearch is part of creating a book
where the cities, and again, some ofthe people that I mentioned do come
(33:54):
to life and I hope they do anyway.
And I think that's, that's one ofthe, been one of the great things
they've learned is really, I had toretrain myself as to how to write and
hopefully did a good enough job thatsome people can pick it up and might.
Not put it down afterjust the first few pages.
And I also shared a lot about my ownpersonal story in the book, how I grew up,
(34:16):
how I moved, what my parents thought abouttheir housing decisions, where I live now.
So opening up about my own personal lifewas a bit daunting, but again, I feel
like that was, that's really all of thoseplaces where I lived have shaped how I
think about the world, how I think about.
Land use regulation, howI think about zoning.
(34:37):
Sarah, some of the commentary in thebook about family, you know, they
move to like a sort of area where.
It was an enterprise sort of area.
People came there to get established andI think they started a business, but then
things, the, the area deteriorated andthey decided that, no, it's time to leave.
I mean, I found those sort of things andhaving the zoning and the planning land
(35:02):
use issues built around those things.
I found that very captivating.
Well, thank you.
And I think that they were zoning or thelack of zoning in the case of the Houston
chapter of the book is It was part ofthat story, but it wasn't the full story.
And so what I was trying to do too,was to say that, that zoning or the,
(35:24):
in that case, again, the lack of zoningmay have played a role, but there were
all of these other dynamics going onand they contributed to the ways that
my family has decided to move from oneplace to the other and the decisions
they made about where to invest theirincome for housing, a key decision that
many American households make, and justwanted to describe how they did that and
(35:48):
what sort of spatial consequences thathad for my family and for me personally.
Sarah, zoning codes seek to createcertainty and consistency, to be
fair, and they're also perhapswritten with the worst case
scenarios in mind a lot of the times.
Can you talk about how governmentrisk adverse approaches can conflict
(36:11):
with the dynamic nature of enterprise?
You know, how are these things reconciled?
That's an interesting questionbecause I think the premise
of it, that zoning codes.
are there to help create consistencyis not, is not always the case.
And I mean that not for things likesingle family neighborhoods, which are
(36:33):
very consistent, but for other areaslike mixed use areas, areas where
you might have multifamily housing.
I think those types of areas that typeof zoning tends to be much more gray,
much more, much more often subject topublic hearings and the public process,
and actually putting the risk on propertyowners who are seeking to develop.
(36:57):
Their properties.
So from a government perspective, in away, many zoning codes shift the risk
from government to property ownersand they sort of say, Well, you know,
here is it is possible you could getpermitted for this, but you got to run
through these five different gauntletsbefore you actually make that happen.
(37:19):
I think zoning codes I mean just switchinggears a bit zoning codes do have a role
to play in helping to manage climate risk.
And to mitigate the impact of humansettlement on the environment,
particularly through the transportationsector and reducing the amount
of trips we make in cars relativeto other types of transportation.
(37:41):
So I do think zoning does have arole to play in that, but I wouldn't
say that it's been very expert indoing that at the scale that we need.
So Sarah, incorporating flexibilityis one thing, but when does
the exception become the rule?
Is it the best resourced and connectedthat achieve the better outcomes?
For me, it's maybeflexibility within guardrails.
(38:05):
So you could think of a mixeduse district as being a complete
free for all, any use is allowed.
Or you could think of it as amixed use district that is intended
to promote some combination oftourism, retail, and service uses.
And then you can define yourdistrict that way, allowing a broad
range of uses within the district.
But again, subjectingthem to certain rules.
(38:28):
Um, I guess for me that the flexibilityquestion, because zoning codes can
be so restrictive and prescriptive.
Pushing for flexibility was really animportant guiding principle in the book,
particularly flexibility with regard tothe uses that are allowed in particular
(38:49):
districts, and maybe breaking up someof that monotony that we see in far
too many single purpose neighborhoods.
So I remember when I was a young planner,decades ago, the council that the local
government that I work for they were.
There was a big consternation becauseat the time, and you won't believe this
Jess, but video shops were appearingeverywhere, you know, the, um, uh, when
(39:14):
you would go and, uh, hire a video,um, and there was worry then that, oh,
we better try and regulate where doesthis, how does this land use, Fit in.
Do you think, um, sometimes Sarah,that we need to be a bit more relaxed
about, you know, the dynamic changesin the market and the zoning system or
to just, have a lot more, flex in it.
(39:40):
Yeah, I think so.
And it's a, that's an interesting story.
I, the, the examples that I include inthe book, well, I mean, let's just use
the area of creative, creative uses.
I talk a bit about Chicago, ofcourse, another huge American city
with lots of different neighborhoodsand the flexibility that was shown
on the South side to allow fortheater, a bar, sort of a mix of.
(40:04):
Architect movie, movie theater andarchitectural use different uses
of buildings in a neighborhoodthat was formerly primarily
residential, the conversion of a bankbuilding to more of a culture hub.
And I think saying my argument in thebook is that that's, that's a really great
way to to allow a community to change.
(40:28):
I think the other example that comesup quite regularly, in the context that
probably Pete and I work in is this ideaabout regulating, the land use of fast
food in particular, you know, we're ina society now where, that's not seen
as a land use or a desirable land use.
I should say that, that peoplewant on every street corner yet.
(40:49):
In some of our newer suburbsin Australia, we're seeing a
proliferation of those sorts of uses.
Has that been something that's come up inthe work or the research that you've done?
In Hartford, we did visual preferencesurveys of people showing them images of
(41:11):
things that were in their communities.
So places that actually existed in theirneighborhoods and asking them to rate.
Whether they like them or not,essentially, and we did this several times
and irrespective of the neighborhood,the demographic, we found that the lowest
rated places from a visual standpointfrom a do I like this standpoint were
(41:37):
the fast food restaurants that in the gasstations and similar car oriented uses.
What they bring to communities is a,of course, a car oriented approach.
They have fairly Robust franchiserequirements that say that, well, you have
to have a curb cut that's 30 feet wide.
(41:59):
You have to have two of them.
You have to be on a corner lot.
There has to be a huge amount of parking.
And then of course with thedrive-throughs, the idling of the
cars that comes along with that,because people in Hartford so strongly
expressed a preference against thosekinds of restaurants coming into the
(42:19):
community, we essentially zone them out.
And I think in some ways, doing thatin tandem with an expansion of our
urban agriculture provisions, actuallynot an expansion we've never had them
we wrote them for the first time,allowing expressly for things like
community gardens and farmers markets.
Urban farms, as well as, ofcourse, a variety of individual,
(42:43):
gardening, farming, beekeeping,henkeeping, and things like that.
I hope that over time that will helpimprove the overall health of Hartford.
Zoning has a really big roleto play in the food supply.
I cover that in an entirechapter in the book.
And not only when it comes tofast food and urban agriculture,
but also in rural areas.
(43:04):
Where we have these huge commercialagricultural feeding operations that have
huge negative impacts on the environment.
It was very interesting, the urbanagriculture, section in your book,
Sarah, I mean, I've got bees,so I appreciate anything that
makes home agriculture better.
Um, that's a very interestingobservation about, you polled
(43:27):
the residents of Hartford.
There is a program in the UK.
Sarah, it's called scenic or not.
And what, uh, that's run by universityand what they do is they post images
and there's thousands and thousands ofpeople who respond to those image and
write them just as your residents did.
And what they're doing is feeding thatinto AI so they can build up this.
(43:54):
Model code of what worksand what doesn't work.
It's called scenic or not.
Um, very interesting.
Just touching on Sarah, theurban farming aspects, you've
mentioned that in your last answer.
Are you seeing benefits fromthat change of people, taking
advantage of those opportunities?
(44:17):
Well, the benefits include thesort of self determination and
the ability to grow your own food,to have direct access to that.
Especially in places likeHartford, which are considered.
to be a food desert, a place wherefresh food is not available that can
help provide some alternatives tothe existing fast food or convenience
(44:39):
store type options that too manyneighborhoods in Hartford tend to rely on.
So I think for many communities,and I use Boston in the book, and
I touch a little bit on Hartford'surban agriculture provisions.
Those types of changes to rules have beena really important way for communities
to just give residents more options in,in how they can access healthy food.
(45:04):
And Sarah, in theacknowledgements you write,
this book is about the importance ofunderstanding our power to improve the
places we live, the places that can,that should sustain and fulfill us.
Uh, lovely words.
Have you a message for our listeners?
I think my main message in the bookand, and in my work more generally
(45:26):
is that you can make change.
You can be the changewith the right people.
With a bit of knowledge about howzoning codes work with an understanding
of the terms that are used and someof the consequences of some of the
more common zoning provisions andarmed with some examples about how
zoning has worked in the field.
I hope that readers do go out andinterrogate the codes in their
(45:50):
own communities and see whetherthere are ways to make them better.
Sarah book number two.
Oh, if I, if I work on a second book,it will probably be about historic
preservation, historic places, andthe values that preservationists
(46:10):
must weigh in the face of a housingaffordability challenge of climate risk.
And so many more issues that I think.
uh, challenge the maybe aestheticsoriented approach of much of
historic preservation practice.
Wow.
(46:30):
Look forward to that one, Sarah.
If it's half as good as the key tothe city, it's going to be terrific.
We've moved now to Sarah as theend of the podcast and we call it
podcast extra or culture corner.
Something you've read, seen, watched,listened to, experienced lately that
might be of interest to our listeners.
And it doesn't have to be on topicand it can be more than, it can
(46:53):
be more than one recommendation.
Well, I'm going to go from thevery local to the international and
stick with historic preservation.
So just a couple months ago, the Libraryof Congress put out a report about
international approaches to policies atthe intersection of historic preservation
and climate change, and I actuallyhave a different hat for now, which
(47:18):
is a role leading the Federal HistoricPreservation Agency, and I asked for this
report, and I was greatly and pleasantlysurprised by its depth and its scope.
It covers a number of countries, andI think presents some hope to the U.
S.
and to maybe other people living inother countries about how we might
(47:40):
go about protecting our historicresources from climate risks.
And how we might incorporateindigenous knowledge into our decisions
and how we can use particularlybuildings to mitigate the impacts
of climate change on our world.
So I encourage it's a very dry but Iknow your readers are place oriented and
(48:01):
policy oriented so for those listenersout there rather that I recommend
this Library of Congress report.
So check it out and.
That's my, that's my, that'swhat I've just got finished
reading and I was very happy.
We'll put a link on ourepisode notes for that, Sarah.
Sure.
Jess, what have you gota podcast extra extras?
(48:25):
Mine is actually theMartha Stewart documentary.
I don't know if either of you haveseen that, but, it gives a really
interesting take on Martha Stewart'slife and, you know, her being
allegedly the first female billionaire.
And it was a reallyinteresting documentary.
I actually quite enjoyed it.
An absolute firecracker of a woman.
(48:47):
How about you, Pete?
Oh, I've got a couple, Jess.
I've recently been to Japan,Sarah, for the ninth time.
And when I was there, I wentto the birthplace of an author
I very much like, Osamu Daizo.
D A Z A I.
I think it's really, it's a real specialprivilege to go to the birthplace and
the region where an author grew upbecause it helps you a little bit,
(49:12):
understand A bit more about the authorand some of the, some of these topics.
So he's a terrific author.
I'm also reading the bookshop womanby Nanako Anada at the moment.
That's a bit of a cult classic.
Yes.
I think it's one of probably typicallywhat you would prefer than me.
I like nonfiction, but.
Those two Japanese, authors areterrific and one final recommendation,
(49:37):
Jess, Sarah, I've rediscovered thepleasure of omelettes in the morning.
So I would urge all our listeners tostart eating omelettes, make the effort.
They are fantastic.
A bit of, uh, goat's cheeseand mushroom or tomato and
cheese are my recommendations.
Sarah,
any thoughts on omelettes?
(49:57):
Five stars.
Jess, what's your favorite type of omelet?
Definitely bacon and cheese.
Oh, Jess.
All right.
Sarah, you've been a terrific guest.
I can't recommend your book highly enough.
Key to the city.
It makes a very, well,could be a staid topic.
Could be a, it could belike a dour topic, zoning.
(50:21):
You bring it to life.
I really appreciate, love the examples.
The book sings along.
You can dive in and out of it.
It's not some sort of academictrone that is hard that I remember
from being when I was at uni.
So congratulations on a wonderful book.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that.
(50:43):
Thanks, Sarah.
Thanks for listening.
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This podcast is supported by VPLA.
Victorian PlanningEnvironmental Law Association.
Welcome to the Planning Exchangewhere we interview built environment
professionals who are doinginteresting work beyond the ordinary.
I'm Jess Noonan and I'm joinedby my colleague Peter Jewell.
Today we're lucky enough tobe speaking with Sarah Bronin.
(00:20):
Sarah knows zoning as wellas any expert in the country.
A former Rhodes Scholar, she'sa professor of law and urban
planning at Cornell University.
She grew up in Houston, famously thecountry's largest city without zoning,
and splits her time between Washington DCand Hartford, Connecticut, whose zoning
code she led the efforts to overhaul.
Welcome to the show, Sarah.
(00:42):
Thank you so much forhaving me, Jess and Peter,
can you give our listeners a backgroundas to how you got to where you are,
both education and work history.
So I started off my college career, Iguess, going to architecture school.
And in the US, it's a five yeardegree that leads to the professional.
(01:03):
Licensing for architecture.
So I did the five year Bachelor ofArchitecture, then I went to England
for two years and did a master'sdegree in history and came back to
the States at Yale to do a law degree.
So 10 years of straight schooling.
I started after that as a professorof law focused on land use law and
(01:24):
actually historic preservation lawwas my first class that I taught and
they prepared the materials for thatand eventually wrote a book on that.
But I've been focused, both inmy professorial work as well as
consulting and public service on thevery questions that are covered by
this book, really how do our laws.
(01:45):
Make or not make beautiful,sustainable and equitable cities.
Congratulations on the book, Sarah,which is just about to be released, I
think which we're recording now in lateNovember your book key to the city,
how zoning shapes our world in that youexplore how power structures shape cities.
(02:05):
Can you explain why understandingthese power dynamics is essential
for city planners and city managers?
Well, so thinking about howzoning and land use rules get
enacted at the local level, it isinherently a political process.
You look at, mayors leading zoningreforms or city councils, negotiating
(02:28):
with individual developers or evenstate legislatures as they, intervene
in local zoning, which is their rightbecause the power to zone in the U.
S.
comes from state governments.
I do think understanding how politics andinstitutions come into play in developing
our land use rules is really important.
(02:49):
And that's why I start the bookwith a bit of a history of zoning
in the US which really speaks to.
The federal government's role actuallyand in jump starting zoning as it's
practiced today, and then also now therole of states, which about 100 years
ago all adopted these state zoningenabling acts and now at the local
(03:10):
level, we actually don't know how manylocal governments have zoning in the U.
S.
I'm working on that in another projectcalled the National Zoning Atlas, but
again, those power dynamics are reallyimportant because they help explain
why we have the roles that we have.
Now, Sarah, when you startedyour architecture degree, did you
anticipate or foresee, how youwould end up working in this field?
(03:34):
Working across botharchitecture planning and law.
I did.
In fact, I applied to law school fromarchitecture school and only deferred
to go to Oxford, but I knew that evenin school, when we were told, go out
and design these beautiful projectsor this new house in this hypothetical
(03:54):
lot or a library or a fire station, wedidn't really have any constraints as
architecture students, and that just.
Fundamentally struck me asGreat for innovative design,
but maybe not so realistic.
And so I took a special interest in theclasses that touched on legal topics.
(04:15):
And one of those was a professionalpractice class that touched on
topics like contracts that youmight make as an architect with
a contractor or a consultant andalso touched a bit on zoning.
So I think for me,understanding land use laws.
And building codes and someof the other things that I've
studied in my career is really anoutgrowth of architecture school.
(04:39):
I knew very well, even then that Ineeded to understand these rules to
understand how cities actually get built.
Sarah, the title of the book is Key tothe City, How Zoning Shapes Our World.
What brought you to the conceptof a key of, you know, the key?
(04:59):
Well, I think zoning affects everythingthat happens in, I guess I would
even say almost the entire country,the populated areas of the country.
We do see places.
Primarily rural areas, although it'sjust pointed out the top Houston.
Also, a large city that does nothave zoning, but most large cities,
(05:20):
suburbs, you know, relativelyreasonably populated counties.
They have this power to zone.
And I think it's both at the local leveland at an aggregate scale with all of
these local decisions kind of adding up.
You see how important zoning is to theeconomy to society to our environment.
(05:48):
To transportation patterns and housing,you know, and a lot of the things that
have those things I focus on in the book.
Sarah, you're obviouslytalking to two planners here.
And we've both really onlygot urban planning experience.
I don't think you'd have anything elsespecifically, Pete, that you've studied.
Um, but what struck meis really interesting.
(06:08):
Reading through the book wasthat comment that you made about.
And the, the reference in thebook about Houston, not having
any zoning that blows my mind.
And I don't know too much aboutplanning in the States and I
haven't actually been there.
So we'd love to understanda little bit more from you
about how that actually works.
And is that a good thing or a bad thing?
(06:30):
In the book, I argue that the absence ofzoning in Houston is problematic because
the city a lot more on private rules.
They call them covenants in the US.
I'm not sure.
Um, you know, if that,that translates over, but
we have the same thing.
So we, we call themrestrictive covenants here.
(06:52):
Yeah.
So, so great.
And so you, so these arerecorded on individual deeds
and constrain future owners.
So in lots of places, you mightnot have covenants because you have
zoning or you have other rules thatare in place in Houston, where land
is regulated from a use perspective.
(07:13):
It's regulated through covenants,many of which are decades and decades
old sometimes over 100 years old,and a lot of which really constrain
the way the city grows and develops.
So that's an over reliance onprivate rules on the one hand.
On the other hand, you see a city where,people, especially, residents with
(07:33):
housing, located in floodplain areas orin areas that are prone to sea level rise.
A lot of these areas are hitrepeatedly by weather events.
And if we had zoning, we might not beputting housing there in the first place.
And then overall from the city'sgrowth, and sort of managing,
managing growth, making sure thatthe city is, is beautiful, which is
(07:57):
something that zoning can achieve.
You just don't see that in Houston.
And you don't see a city thatreally has much orderly development.
So one of my favorite.
Land uses that I used to site, althoughthe land uses switched over in recent
years, but it was an adult use shopthat was very prominently located in the
(08:17):
parking lot of a very fancy shopping mall.
You had in my house where I, my apartment,where I grew up right across the street,
there was a gas station, a self storagefacility, a strip mall, and a nightclub.
And so as land use planners, you knowthat that doesn't necessarily make a
(08:37):
ton of sense in a neighborhood wherethere's a lot of families with young kids.
So I guess Houston, to me, makes thecase for zoning and the absence of
it has different dimensions acrossa lot of different areas, but,
is something that I hope readers.
Uh, can understand in the bookand just for context, Houston
(08:58):
is a sprawling city, too.
So it has annexed land outside ofcity limits, um, many different
across decades, actually.
And the city is about 500 square miles.
That is enormous.
Um, so I think, again, that kindof explains what's going on in
Houston and the dynamics there.
(09:19):
And Sarah, just, just in terms of thecovenants, because as we mentioned
before, that, that does translateinto Australian property law as well.
Presumably, and this is the casein Australia, trying to remove
or amend or change a restrictivecovenant on someone's title is a very
Convoluted and extensive process.
(09:40):
I would imagine that it's fairlysimilar with the covenants that
you're referring to, which thereforemakes it really difficult to, say
any evolution of, of those laws.
I think a great example of that isone I use in the book about my uncle's
property that he purchased, and ithad a covenant on there that said that
(10:00):
you could not use this property foranything other than residential uses.
And it was in fact still a historichome shaped like a home, but what had
happened over time is that particularstreet had become a commercial street.
So in violation of the restrictivecovenant, all of these businesses were
operating up and down the street inthese historic houses as businesses.
(10:22):
Now he wanted to expand his veterinaryclinic, which was in another historic
house on the other side of the streetinto the property that he purchased.
And a neighbor essentially lodged acomplaint with the city, which sent
him down this deep rabbit hole oflegal issues and city lawsuits and and
(10:45):
more costing him tens of thousands ofdollars, whereas zoning code, which
could change in response to changeconditions much easier than a restrictive
covenant, you know, would have justhad him going to the office filing
for 100 permit and calling it a day.
So the restrictive covenant, theunchangeability of those, you're right.
(11:05):
It's very difficult to change.
The usually involves a court process.
And in my uncle's case, theinflexibility of the restrictive
covenant really speaks to, the need formore rational rules that affect land.
And Sarah, just out of interest isthat process, you know, is it months?
Is it years long to change a covenant?
(11:28):
It's not only lengthy, and I wouldsay probably more in the span of years
than months, just given the way thecourt system works, so it's, it's
lengthy and expensive, but there's notnecessarily a guarantee of success.
In most states, the property law rulesrequire you to show often some kind of
hardship, some kind of significantlychanged conditions, which I think my
(11:49):
uncle could have shown in that case.
It might involve, some proofof changes in the land itself.
And so it's not a slam dunk even whenyou ask to remove a restrictive covenant.
Well, Sarah, I'm goingto stand up for Houston.
I've never been to Texas.
I've been to other parts ofthe States, but I think it's
(12:10):
great to have a place like that.
So you can compare it to thedefault, the standard, um, the
standard situation with zoning.
Do you take any truck with whatI'm saying that it's good to have,
uh, uh, exceptions so you can testtheories and things like that.
(12:31):
Well, I do like the counterfactual.
So it is helpful to have acounterfactual given that so much
of the country does have zoning.
On the other hand, for the people actuallyliving in Houston, the counterfactual,
it's not an abstract concept, right?
They're, they're sort of affected.
On the ground in their daily liveswith the maybe just disorderly
(12:53):
situation that you have there.
As I point out in the book, Houston doeshave some controls on land development so
it does have minimum parking requirementsand minimum lot sizes and other maybe what
you might call lot and lot restrictions.
But beyond that it is fairly limitedso you're right it does provide a
(13:14):
great counterfactual for us to use.
And in fact, Houston has been studiedby lots of different scholars.
And Sarah, in your book, you provide achronological history of land use zoning.
And I learned a lot, how thatevolution of the controls came about.
Important is this, and you might haveto help me out here, use a lead, lead in
(13:37):
zoning case named after a city in Ohio.
Can you talk a little about thesignificance of that court decision?
I think it was in the 1920sand what that put in train.
Okay.
And.
Please pronounce my terriblepronunciation as well.
It is the Village of Euclidversus Ambler Realty.
(13:57):
As you point out, it's a 1926case, and it was a very significant
case because at the time thepractice of zoning was fairly new.
It was a case that wentall the way up to the U.
S.
Supreme Court, and the question inthe case was, It was essentially
whether zoning was legal, whetherit was something that was consistent
(14:18):
with local government's police powers.
The Supreme Court said yes, of courseit did, because otherwise we wouldn't
have zoning as we have it today.
And from there, zoning really took offin communities all across the country.
The way that people refer to the oldschool way that the Euclid zoning
(14:39):
ordinance is structured, so a pyramidalzoning scheme, is called Euclidean zoning.
So you were close enough, but ithas nothing to do with geometry.
Everything to do with the fact thatthis tiny little village, decided to,
or was the subject of this zoning suit.
And Sarah, your book outlines why it'simportant to study the historical origins
(15:01):
and motivations behind early zoning.
And obviously we've just spokenabout the Euclidean case there.
Do you agree with that and how is itbest for people to go about undertaking
that research and why is it important?
I do think we should look backat zoning's origin story, and
I do touch on that in the book.
And I would say, again, probablyabout 100 years ago is when
(15:24):
zoning really started to take off.
You had the Euclid case, you hadthe federal government, the U.
S.
Department of Commerce playing arole in actually drafting a state
model Zoning Enabling Act, whichall the states eventually adopted.
The history, though, I think is, whileit's important, and while we should
(15:45):
look back, especially at zoning'smore racist justifications, I think
we also need to do a lot more thinkingabout what zoning is today and how
it can be reshaped for the future.
So the context in some ways again, veryimportant, provides some information
(16:07):
about why we went about adopting zoningin the first place, how it spread,
what motivated it, but I almost feellike zoning has been so stale and so
many communities for so many years.
That what we really need to dois take stock of where we are
right now and use that as thestarting point to, to move forward.
I tend to feel that, you know, thinkingtoo much about the origins kind of chains
(16:34):
us to that past and those dialoguesrather than unleashing the opportunity
that zoning provides, which is whatI hope my book tries to tries to do.
Sarah, on that point, a lot of times,modern thinking or contemporary thinking
is a bit conceited because It assumesthat people who made decisions previously
(16:57):
in other times weren't as smart as us.
Um, and by studying those originsand also the progression of zoning
and sort of what went wrong.
Don't we gain some insights to, I know thecircumstances were different then, but.
They were very smart people who broughtthese controls in and who managed
(17:19):
them, and sometimes it went wrong.
Do you think there's some valuein that sort of appreciation?
That, um, learning from what they didwrong or what we now know they did wrong?
Sorry.
It's a clumsy question.
Well, I think you're getting at somethingimportant, though, which is if we do look
(17:41):
back and we think about those motivationsand the types of provisions they put in
place, what can we learn about how zoningis endured today and how it should change?
And I think one of the key thingsthat we can learn when we look back is
that there were so many instances of.
People just copycatting one code from oneplace to the next, the state enabling laws
(18:08):
being translated almost word for word fromone state to the next, taken from that U.
S.
Department of Commerce guide, and thenjust not changed or barely changed or
changed wholesale in a way that wasdeeply problematic and that we would
know today based on planning researchand understandings about how humans
(18:30):
interact with their environment thatwe would never decide to build today.
If we knew back then when the wave ofzoning that swept Zoning reforms that
swept cities in the 1950s would leadto a car oriented culture that made
us all chain to our cars in the US,many of us anyway, for the rest of
(18:52):
our lives and for generations to come.
I think we may not have made thosemistakes, but at that time we thought,
Oh, the car is such a great idea.
So I guess what I would say isthat one of the things I do push
in the book is to try to make sure.
That we are reinvestigating zoning, thatwe are reinterrogating the zoning laws
and the books, and not just sitting therecopying from one code to the next, making
(19:14):
the same unfounded assumptions in somecases, and really trying to be innovative.
So that's where I wouldland on that question,
I feel like a lot of cities acrossthe world grapple with this idea
about, whether zoning should beYou know, state and place specific,
or whether or not there's value inhaving national approaches to zoning.
(19:35):
Do you have a view on this?
I think in part because there's so muchconvergence in so many codes, in many
ways we do have national consensus onhow zoning should go now and I think that
consensus Is based on some assumptionsand based on some ideas, at least that
that might have been relevant in thepast, but are for many Americans no
(19:57):
longer relevant, namely the assumptionthat we all want to live and single
family only residential areas where wehave to drive everywhere that that is
what American zoning primarily requires.
Well, so that's very similar towhat we've got here in Australia.
So, that car based, suburban, modelis very much entrenched here as well.
(20:18):
So very similar parallels.
I mean, we're starting to see a lotof difference in that system, um,
evolving through particularly in ourcity areas, but I think certainly for
our suburbs and our regional areas,that would certainly still be the case.
You also cite examplesof Hartford in your book.
Can you tell our listeners alittle bit about Hartford and
(20:41):
your relationship with the town?
And we note that you dedicated thebook to the people of Hartford,
so there must be something there.
Oh, yes.
I spent seven years as chair of thecity's, planning and zoning commission.
For your listeners, around theworld, Hartford is the capital
city of Connecticut, which is astate in New England, one of the
oldest states in the country.
(21:01):
Hartford was founded in 1635, longbefore the establishment of the U.
S.
as a country.
And for that reason, it's a historicalcity, it's a compact city, it is
filled with amazing neighborhoods.
But like many cities in the U.
S., it also Has suffered from the ebbsand flows of economic development,
(21:28):
and in particular, Hartford usedto be an industrial capital with
lots of large factories everywhere.
And those factories have gone intodisuse and, you know, as a result,
changes in interest in peopleliving in central cities as well.
The city of Hartford hasseen a lot of disinvestment.
(21:50):
And has had a lot of buildingsand neighborhoods that have seen
population loss and consequently,the underutilization of buildings.
So I guess I would say Hartford is partof a group of post industrial cities that
has struggled as manufacturing in the U.
S.
has waned a bit, and for that reason,it makes it a very interesting place
(22:14):
to have worked on zoning, which in myview has the potential to help people.
revive communities like Hartford,and which I tried to work towards
in my role as chair of thePlanning and Zoning Commission.
Sarah, how's it going now?
From when you started, is therea renaissance in Hartford?
Are things turning the right way?
(22:36):
I hope so.
I am no longer chair of thePlanning and Zoning Commission.
I stepped down in 2021.
But since there's certainlybeen new development.
There's been development thatfollows the rules we set out in
the zoning code, including as ofright housing related development.
And no minimum parking requirementsand a form based code that helps us to
(23:00):
get rid of some of the strip malls andcar washes and car oriented development
generally that we saw across the city.
And I hope that will continue asdevelopment proposals happen and as
things get built and rehabilitatedand as uses and these older factories
change that all of that continuesto contribute to Hartford's rise.
(23:23):
And I'm very optimistic about Hartfordand cities like it I think a creative
approach to zoning, as I cover in thebook across several similar cities
including Baltimore, Maryland, that thoseideas can help to revive this particular
kind of city post industrial city.
It's great.
Jess that Sarah's got that.
(23:45):
Hands on experience, lived experience ofmanaging, you know, overseeing zoning.
And I'm sure Sarah that helpedtremendously with the book.
Absolutely.
You can see Hartford and the stories ofHartford residents and business owners
in several of the chapters in the book.
And in fact, I wouldconsider Hartford to be.
(24:07):
An anchor across the book and acrossthe different chapters and I could
have maybe written an entire book justabout the Hartford zoning code and
the changes there, but my publishersaid, maybe people would be interested
in hearing about other cities too.
You've sold the place very well.
I'm keen to visit next timeI go to the States, Sarah.
And you can keep that foryour next book, Sarah.
(24:31):
And throughout Key to the Cityare examples of zoning done well.
And badly, examples that given asit relates to downtown music and all
creators, for example, Nashville andAustin, why did you go, you know, why
did you take this approach of usingexamples like that and what were
those examples, what did they give us?
(24:54):
Well, I think having differentexamples and stories of cities and
neighborhoods in the book helps to ground.
What could have been a very dry,technical, theoretically oriented, book.
And so I look at the books thatI've written before, which include
legal treatises and textbooksand very technical articles.
(25:19):
And that is never going tocapture the attention of people.
an audience that doesn't already havea reason to pick up a text like that.
I tried to write this book in a way thatwould be interesting to a lot of different
kinds of people, not just lawyers, notjust planners, but people who might be
(25:41):
curious about the role of zoning and mightwant to understand how it does shape our
world, I guess, as the subtitle suggests.
But, that's why I tried to use thestories of individual neighborhoods and
by and large places where I have been.
The only place in the book I think Ihaven't been, but was just too obvious for
me to not include was Las Vegas, Nevada.
(26:04):
So maybe some of yourlisteners have been there.
And in that part of the book,I write about aesthetics and
signage, very specifically.
Now, Sarah, in the book, you saydone wrong zoning can take us to past
mistakes, acting as an invisible dragon our aspirations, but done right.
Zoning can be a revolutionaryvehicle for transforming place.
(26:25):
Now, how do we ensure, I guess,that the way that we're currently
doing zoning doesn't lead topoor outcomes in our future?
Is it about education?
Is it about, or how do weeducate, I guess, our state
representatives, our localrepresentatives and even the plan is.
working in the system?
(26:46):
How do we ensure that we don'tmake the same mistakes of the past?
Well, nothing ensures that we won'tmake mistakes, but I think we have
enough information to know how somestandard zoning provisions, including
large minimum lot sizes and minimumparking requirements, have hurt
(27:10):
The development of our communities.
So I kind of feel like we have enoughinformation to make decisions about
how to unravel or how to modify certaincommon provisions and zoning, and we
should move forward on those changes.
At the local level or at thestate level, whichever one seems
to be most politically feasible.
(27:31):
We also have, I think, the benefit ofa growing body of research on zoning
and its impacts a growing understandingof within the planning act within
planning academia within architecture.
Within historic preservation that zoningdoes play a really important role.
So I do think that really interrogatingzoning, using the data and the research
(27:57):
that's already been published, that we canreally move forward, even if some mistakes
might be made, because most times.
The status quo is going to be worsethan some of the things again that we
know from experience from research fromdata have a chance of being successful.
(28:19):
Sarah, the zoning system has itscritics and, and fair enough,
it also has its supporters.
What successes do you think, how doyou rate it over the last 100 years?
It's a very tough question, but doyou give it, like a six out of 10?
Do you give it a four out of 10?
(28:40):
Oh, gosh.
Sorry, Sarah.
It's a, it's a.
Can I read
it?
I don't even know if I can read it.
I mean, in many cases, it's a.
Zero or one out of 10, but
in other cases, in terms of segregating,you mentioned the Houston example
of sort of a real mix of land uses.
So it has achieved, some good, it'sachieved a number of good things by
(29:03):
segregating and presumably improvedresidential amenity standards in some case
by segregating the uses that aren't great.
Um, where am I goingwith this question, Jess?
Help me out.
But, so, Sarah, it's veryunfair, so you can't rate it.
Uh, in some cases good, some cases bad.
(29:23):
I think that sums it up and I would sayan unfortunate number of bad cases and
maybe even a majority of land that couldbe more flexible in the way that it's
owned and that a majority of land thatis zoned for single family only single
family residential large lot zoning.
(29:43):
All of those places representopportunities in my view to move in
a different direction to understandcommunity needs and again to
really question, is the zoning codeworking the way it was intended
to work and what can we do better.
And in terms of the audiencefor this book, Sarah, who are
you targeting specifically?
(30:06):
I want anybody who's curious aboutthe way that their neighborhood
or their city has developed to beinterested enough in the idea of
zoning that they pick up this book.
So as I said before, you know, it's nota book that I, that I just wanted lawyers
to read or just wanted planners to read.
It's a book that I feel like.
Everybody should have an interest inand so part of, the part of why I'm
(30:29):
so glad to be on your show is that ithopefully reaches a few more people and
entices them to pick up the book andexplore this more expansive idea about
what zoning is and what zoning can do.
But I want to maybe even somaybe another obvious audience,
people who are involved in localgovernment planning commissioners.
(30:52):
neighborhood activists and leaders, theenvironmental movement, transportation
advocates, of course, housing advocates.
We've talked a lot about zoning in the U.
S.
as it relates to housing, but I do wantto bring in some of these other groups,
and that's why I include a chapteron environmental issues, a chapter on
(31:13):
transportation, because I think peopledon't think enough about the cumulative
impacts of zoning on these groups.
Sarah, I found your book very enjoyable.
And the examples you cite reallybring the issues to the forefront.
The zoning system isjust there, you write to
improve the analysis and understandingof it , is there, have you
(31:38):
come across viable alternatives?
or is it just a case ofmaking it work better?
A number of questions in that, sorry.
I think it's the latter.
I think it's, let's take what we haveand try to make it work better because
humans have always tried to ordertheir communities through some kind
of land use and building regulations
(32:00):
so we kind of always come backto something like zoning, when we
organize our cities going back toRoman planning and the other city
states all throughout history, we'veseen again that that sort of ordering,
and I don't think you can escape.
That, that at some point humans want that.
(32:23):
And even, you know, Houston asideand very rural areas in the U.
S.
aside, many of which don't havezoning, you do, again, you do see
that impulse as soon as you startgetting any critical massive density.
So I do think it's a matter ofmaking it work better rather than
just tossing zoning out, uh, andtrying to find something different.
Eventually we'd comeback to zoning itself.
(32:47):
Sarah, I think this wasyour first book, it?
I've had a few, as I mentioned,legal treatises and textbooks,
but this was the first one that isaimed towards a non legal audience.
Yeah, sure.
So what did you, what was differentabout those processes and what did
you learn about this process and whatsurprised you about creating the book?
(33:07):
It really pushed me out of my comfortzone in terms of being a legal
scholar and being a technical expert.
So one of the things that I learned was.
That I have.
a lot to learn when it comes to creating abook that's story based and people based.
And I guess I've, written about placesbefore, but this is really getting into
(33:30):
deep, deep history and explanation ofhow places came to be and every city
that I, include in the book, I dida deep dive on how it developed and
how a particular neighborhood withinit developed and the dynamics there.
And so I think that all of thatresearch is part of creating a book
where the cities, and again, some ofthe people that I mentioned do come
(33:54):
to life and I hope they do anyway.
And I think that's, that's one ofthe, been one of the great things
they've learned is really, I had toretrain myself as to how to write and
hopefully did a good enough job thatsome people can pick it up and might.
Not put it down afterjust the first few pages.
And I also shared a lot about my ownpersonal story in the book, how I grew up,
(34:16):
how I moved, what my parents thought abouttheir housing decisions, where I live now.
So opening up about my own personal lifewas a bit daunting, but again, I feel
like that was, that's really all of thoseplaces where I lived have shaped how I
think about the world, how I think about.
Land use regulation, howI think about zoning.
(34:37):
Sarah, some of the commentary in thebook about family, you know, they
move to like a sort of area where.
It was an enterprise sort of area.
People came there to get established andI think they started a business, but then
things, the, the area deteriorated andthey decided that, no, it's time to leave.
I mean, I found those sort of things andhaving the zoning and the planning land
(35:02):
use issues built around those things.
I found that very captivating.
Well, thank you.
And I think that they were zoning or thelack of zoning in the case of the Houston
chapter of the book is It was part ofthat story, but it wasn't the full story.
And so what I was trying to do too,was to say that, that zoning or the,
(35:24):
in that case, again, the lack of zoningmay have played a role, but there were
all of these other dynamics going onand they contributed to the ways that
my family has decided to move from oneplace to the other and the decisions
they made about where to invest theirincome for housing, a key decision that
many American households make, and justwanted to describe how they did that and
(35:48):
what sort of spatial consequences thathad for my family and for me personally.
Sarah, zoning codes seek to createcertainty and consistency, to be
fair, and they're also perhapswritten with the worst case
scenarios in mind a lot of the times.
Can you talk about how governmentrisk adverse approaches can conflict
(36:11):
with the dynamic nature of enterprise?
You know, how are these things reconciled?
That's an interesting questionbecause I think the premise
of it, that zoning codes.
are there to help create consistencyis not, is not always the case.
And I mean that not for things likesingle family neighborhoods, which are
(36:33):
very consistent, but for other areaslike mixed use areas, areas where
you might have multifamily housing.
I think those types of areas that typeof zoning tends to be much more gray,
much more, much more often subject topublic hearings and the public process,
and actually putting the risk on propertyowners who are seeking to develop.
(36:57):
Their properties.
So from a government perspective, in away, many zoning codes shift the risk
from government to property ownersand they sort of say, Well, you know,
here is it is possible you could getpermitted for this, but you got to run
through these five different gauntletsbefore you actually make that happen.
(37:19):
I think zoning codes I mean just switchinggears a bit zoning codes do have a role
to play in helping to manage climate risk.
And to mitigate the impact of humansettlement on the environment,
particularly through the transportationsector and reducing the amount
of trips we make in cars relativeto other types of transportation.
(37:41):
So I do think zoning does have arole to play in that, but I wouldn't
say that it's been very expert indoing that at the scale that we need.
So Sarah, incorporating flexibilityis one thing, but when does
the exception become the rule?
Is it the best resourced and connectedthat achieve the better outcomes?
For me, it's maybeflexibility within guardrails.
(38:05):
So you could think of a mixeduse district as being a complete
free for all, any use is allowed.
Or you could think of it as amixed use district that is intended
to promote some combination oftourism, retail, and service uses.
And then you can define yourdistrict that way, allowing a broad
range of uses within the district.
But again, subjectingthem to certain rules.
(38:28):
Um, I guess for me that the flexibilityquestion, because zoning codes can
be so restrictive and prescriptive.
Pushing for flexibility was really animportant guiding principle in the book,
particularly flexibility with regard tothe uses that are allowed in particular
(38:49):
districts, and maybe breaking up someof that monotony that we see in far
too many single purpose neighborhoods.
So I remember when I was a young planner,decades ago, the council that the local
government that I work for they were.
There was a big consternation becauseat the time, and you won't believe this
Jess, but video shops were appearingeverywhere, you know, the, um, uh, when
(39:14):
you would go and, uh, hire a video,um, and there was worry then that, oh,
we better try and regulate where doesthis, how does this land use, Fit in.
Do you think, um, sometimes Sarah,that we need to be a bit more relaxed
about, you know, the dynamic changesin the market and the zoning system or
to just, have a lot more, flex in it.
(39:40):
Yeah, I think so.
And it's a, that's an interesting story.
I, the, the examples that I include inthe book, well, I mean, let's just use
the area of creative, creative uses.
I talk a bit about Chicago, ofcourse, another huge American city
with lots of different neighborhoodsand the flexibility that was shown
on the South side to allow fortheater, a bar, sort of a mix of.
(40:04):
Architect movie, movie theater andarchitectural use different uses
of buildings in a neighborhoodthat was formerly primarily
residential, the conversion of a bankbuilding to more of a culture hub.
And I think saying my argument in thebook is that that's, that's a really great
way to to allow a community to change.
(40:28):
I think the other example that comesup quite regularly, in the context that
probably Pete and I work in is this ideaabout regulating, the land use of fast
food in particular, you know, we're ina society now where, that's not seen
as a land use or a desirable land use.
I should say that, that peoplewant on every street corner yet.
(40:49):
In some of our newer suburbsin Australia, we're seeing a
proliferation of those sorts of uses.
Has that been something that's come up inthe work or the research that you've done?
In Hartford, we did visual preferencesurveys of people showing them images of
(41:11):
things that were in their communities.
So places that actually existed in theirneighborhoods and asking them to rate.
Whether they like them or not,essentially, and we did this several times
and irrespective of the neighborhood,the demographic, we found that the lowest
rated places from a visual standpointfrom a do I like this standpoint were
(41:37):
the fast food restaurants that in the gasstations and similar car oriented uses.
What they bring to communities is a,of course, a car oriented approach.
They have fairly Robust franchiserequirements that say that, well, you have
to have a curb cut that's 30 feet wide.
(41:59):
You have to have two of them.
You have to be on a corner lot.
There has to be a huge amount of parking.
And then of course with thedrive-throughs, the idling of the
cars that comes along with that,because people in Hartford so strongly
expressed a preference against thosekinds of restaurants coming into the
(42:19):
community, we essentially zone them out.
And I think in some ways, doing thatin tandem with an expansion of our
urban agriculture provisions, actuallynot an expansion we've never had them
we wrote them for the first time,allowing expressly for things like
community gardens and farmers markets.
Urban farms, as well as, ofcourse, a variety of individual,
(42:43):
gardening, farming, beekeeping,henkeeping, and things like that.
I hope that over time that will helpimprove the overall health of Hartford.
Zoning has a really big roleto play in the food supply.
I cover that in an entirechapter in the book.
And not only when it comes tofast food and urban agriculture,
but also in rural areas.
(43:04):
Where we have these huge commercialagricultural feeding operations that have
huge negative impacts on the environment.
It was very interesting, the urbanagriculture, section in your book,
Sarah, I mean, I've got bees,so I appreciate anything that
makes home agriculture better.
Um, that's a very interestingobservation about, you polled
(43:27):
the residents of Hartford.
There is a program in the UK.
Sarah, it's called scenic or not.
And what, uh, that's run by universityand what they do is they post images
and there's thousands and thousands ofpeople who respond to those image and
write them just as your residents did.
And what they're doing is feeding thatinto AI so they can build up this.
(43:54):
Model code of what worksand what doesn't work.
It's called scenic or not.
Um, very interesting.
Just touching on Sarah, theurban farming aspects, you've
mentioned that in your last answer.
Are you seeing benefits fromthat change of people, taking
advantage of those opportunities?
(44:17):
Well, the benefits include thesort of self determination and
the ability to grow your own food,to have direct access to that.
Especially in places likeHartford, which are considered.
to be a food desert, a place wherefresh food is not available that can
help provide some alternatives tothe existing fast food or convenience
(44:39):
store type options that too manyneighborhoods in Hartford tend to rely on.
So I think for many communities,and I use Boston in the book, and
I touch a little bit on Hartford'surban agriculture provisions.
Those types of changes to rules have beena really important way for communities
to just give residents more options in,in how they can access healthy food.
(45:04):
And Sarah, in theacknowledgements you write,
this book is about the importance ofunderstanding our power to improve the
places we live, the places that can,that should sustain and fulfill us.
Uh, lovely words.
Have you a message for our listeners?
I think my main message in the bookand, and in my work more generally
(45:26):
is that you can make change.
You can be the changewith the right people.
With a bit of knowledge about howzoning codes work with an understanding
of the terms that are used and someof the consequences of some of the
more common zoning provisions andarmed with some examples about how
zoning has worked in the field.
I hope that readers do go out andinterrogate the codes in their
(45:50):
own communities and see whetherthere are ways to make them better.
Sarah book number two.
Oh, if I, if I work on a second book,it will probably be about historic
preservation, historic places, andthe values that preservationists
(46:10):
must weigh in the face of a housingaffordability challenge of climate risk.
And so many more issues that I think.
uh, challenge the maybe aestheticsoriented approach of much of
historic preservation practice.
Wow.
(46:30):
Look forward to that one, Sarah.
If it's half as good as the key tothe city, it's going to be terrific.
We've moved now to Sarah as theend of the podcast and we call it
podcast extra or culture corner.
Something you've read, seen, watched,listened to, experienced lately that
might be of interest to our listeners.
And it doesn't have to be on topicand it can be more than, it can
(46:53):
be more than one recommendation.
Well, I'm going to go from thevery local to the international and
stick with historic preservation.
So just a couple months ago, the Libraryof Congress put out a report about
international approaches to policies atthe intersection of historic preservation
and climate change, and I actuallyhave a different hat for now, which
(47:18):
is a role leading the Federal HistoricPreservation Agency, and I asked for this
report, and I was greatly and pleasantlysurprised by its depth and its scope.
It covers a number of countries, andI think presents some hope to the U.
S.
and to maybe other people living inother countries about how we might
(47:40):
go about protecting our historicresources from climate risks.
And how we might incorporateindigenous knowledge into our decisions
and how we can use particularlybuildings to mitigate the impacts
of climate change on our world.
So I encourage it's a very dry but Iknow your readers are place oriented and
(48:01):
policy oriented so for those listenersout there rather that I recommend
this Library of Congress report.
So check it out and.
That's my, that's my, that'swhat I've just got finished
reading and I was very happy.
We'll put a link on ourepisode notes for that, Sarah.
Sure.
Jess, what have you gota podcast extra extras?
(48:25):
Mine is actually theMartha Stewart documentary.
I don't know if either of you haveseen that, but, it gives a really
interesting take on Martha Stewart'slife and, you know, her being
allegedly the first female billionaire.
And it was a reallyinteresting documentary.
I actually quite enjoyed it.
An absolute firecracker of a woman.
(48:47):
How about you, Pete?
Oh, I've got a couple, Jess.
I've recently been to Japan,Sarah, for the ninth time.
And when I was there, I wentto the birthplace of an author
I very much like, Osamu Daizo.
D A Z A I.
I think it's really, it's a real specialprivilege to go to the birthplace and
the region where an author grew upbecause it helps you a little bit,
(49:12):
understand A bit more about the authorand some of the, some of these topics.
So he's a terrific author.
I'm also reading the bookshop womanby Nanako Anada at the moment.
That's a bit of a cult classic.
Yes.
I think it's one of probably typicallywhat you would prefer than me.
I like nonfiction, but.
Those two Japanese, authors areterrific and one final recommendation,
(49:37):
Jess, Sarah, I've rediscovered thepleasure of omelettes in the morning.
So I would urge all our listeners tostart eating omelettes, make the effort.
They are fantastic.
A bit of, uh, goat's cheeseand mushroom or tomato and
cheese are my recommendations.
Sarah,
any thoughts on omelettes?
(49:57):
Five stars.
Jess, what's your favorite type of omelet?
Definitely bacon and cheese.
Oh, Jess.
All right.
Sarah, you've been a terrific guest.
I can't recommend your book highly enough.
Key to the city.
It makes a very, well,could be a staid topic.
Could be a, it could belike a dour topic, zoning.
(50:21):
You bring it to life.
I really appreciate, love the examples.
The book sings along.
You can dive in and out of it.
It's not some sort of academictrone that is hard that I remember
from being when I was at uni.
So congratulations on a wonderful book.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that.
(50:43):
Thanks, Sarah.
Thanks for listening.
If you would like to hear more of ourpodcasts, hit the follow button on Spotify
or the like button on SoundCloud orthe subscribe button in Apple podcasts.
Please also visit our Instagrampage, LinkedIn or website for behind
the scenes footage of our podcastsand to get the latest on upcoming
or recently released episodes.
(51:05):
If you have any suggestions orfeedback, please get in touch via
our social media channels or byemailing planningexchangeatgmail.
com.
We thank Victorian PlanningReports, our very first supporter.
If you want the A to Z of planningdecisions in Victoria and excellent
editorials, please get yourselfa subscription to the VPRs.
(51:26):
Details on our website.
This podcast is supported by ourwonderful friends at One Mile Grid.
One Mile Grid is a boutique consultingfirm, which offers traffic and
transport engineering, transportplanning, and waste management services.
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