Resources for communities and zoning nerds.

A short history of zoning in America

Zoning began in the late nineteenth century, when rapidly growing cities passed laws to keep certain businesses out of residential areas. In 1916, New York City adopted the first comprehensive zoning ordinance in the country, after its Heights of Buildings Commission spent years documenting actual conditions of light, air, and congestion before drafting a regulation.

Then the template got copied. The federal Standard State Zoning Enabling Act (1924) made it easy for states to authorize zoning, and in 1926 the Supreme Court upheld zoning as constitutional in Euclid v. Ambler, a case about a suburb of Cleveland. Thousands of communities adopted Manhattan's solution without doing Manhattan's homework, and zoning was also used to entrench racial segregation, a practice that persisted in many cities for decades.

By the 1970s zoning was being used to promote economic development and to attract business. Today it is asked to do everything from protecting the environment to producing housing. Most codes, though, are still built on the frame they inherited a century ago. That is why every ZoneCo engagement starts with a diagnostic.

Sean Suder, a leading zoning historian, gave the Bettman Lecture on 100 Years of Euclid v. Ambler at the 2026 APA National Planning Conference, and presented "All Zoning is New York City Zoning" at the National Conference on Planning History in October 2026. Speaking →

New paper: All Zoning Is New York City Zoning: How a Custom-Tailored Solution for Manhattan Has Shaped Communities Across America for a Century, by Sean S. Suder, Esq. (2026, PDF).