Form-based codes

A Brookings study makes the case that zoning restrictions are to blame for housing price inequality and lower test scores of low-income students.

As downtown DC runs out of buildable land, officials are considering raising the building height limit.

On the far west of Texas, officials are showing how to bring back historical patterns of transit-oriented, walkable neighborhoods in a low-density, spread-out city.

City Comforts author David Sucher says a book by Andres Duany and company doesn't allow for "messy vitality."

A recently formed coalition, Livability Solutions, has received a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency that will help it give technical assistance to communities that face common development problems such as outdated zoning codes and a lack of consensus on where and how to grow.

As codes provide predictability, they also protect the diversity of urbanism. Without them, wary neighbors tend to reject difference in proximity to their dwellings.

A new book by Emily Talen traces the unfortunate history of zoning codes, and argues for clearer vision.

Zoning in the nation's capital may encourage elements associated with the walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods of the past.

Cities and towns would do better to focus on more effective regulations and find ways to make them as streamlined as possible.

The overall trend is toward a more place-based, character-based legal environment, according to one of the authors of the Codes Study.

New York should learn from the Dutch, who have urban designers organize sites for the public good before the architects are called in.