“Zoning is the DNA of our built environment” only holds up as an analogy if one supposes living creatures didn’t exist before we knew about DNA.
Replies
By the same token, our cities predate zoning by millennia. In every city, the most beloved, most valued neighborhoods were built before zoning.
aug 27, 2025, 5:02 pm • 3 0 • view
Exception that proves the rule: That's not true of Las Vegas.
aug 27, 2025, 6:27 pm • 1 0 • view
I know part of the City of Las Vegas dates from a time before zoning was popular among cities, and that the downtown of that city has fallen on hard times since the Strip sprang up on county land, but… I shouldn’t have said “every city.”
aug 27, 2025, 6:43 pm • 0 0 • view
Let me amend that to “most US cities.”
aug 27, 2025, 6:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Zoning is the foot-binding of our built environment
aug 27, 2025, 5:41 pm • 4 1 • view
Well said.
aug 27, 2025, 5:43 pm • 1 0 • view
My pet hate is how many environmental words get hijacked in such a way that entirely reduces the importance of the original naming of the concept. Ecosystem is the recent one which over the last 1 1/2 years every damned journalist seems to be using. Biome is another.
aug 28, 2025, 11:14 am • 2 0 • view
who the f said that
aug 27, 2025, 4:59 pm • 1 0 • view
I’m listening to the latest episode of Kevin Klinkenberg’s Messy City podcast, and his guest this week makes that analogy. I’m paraphrasing here, but his guest’s website is www.zoningisdna.com
aug 27, 2025, 5:08 pm • 0 0 • view