If zoning is sketched in watercolor or charcoal and financing counts in red and black ink, building codes are written in blood.
The physical potential — the material essence — of any given city is set by zoning, finance, and building codes. And while these are not the only determinants of urban form, together they establish a framework for how cities grow and what they actually look like. Each code is a complex set of prescriptions that operates within a particular domain; as codes, zoning, finance, and building regulations all categorize certain urban conditions and specify a range of acceptable outcomes or necessary consequences. Codes are dynamic, invisible forces in cities, balanced block by block and decade after decade in an uneasy equilibrium of aspiration, calculation, and fear.
From time to time, our Omnibus columnists check in to provide commentary on issues of design, policy, and history and their impact on the life and form of the city today. Stephen Rustow’s first column scaled the heights of New York’s skyscrapers to consider “The Privatization of Prospect.” Here, in his second installment, Rustow looks at three intangible forces that greatly influence the shape of our built environment: zoning, finance, and the building code. Based in regulation or market fluctuation, each code has a discrete history and objective, and, as Rustow points out, its own distinctive language. Below, Rustow discusses how these variations in parlance become physical and encourages greater appreciation of the codes’ powerful and intertwined influence on urban form.