Reexamining the Origins of Zoning

According to Seymour Toll's 1969 book, New York City's 1916 zoning code was less a civic-minded project than an attempt to protect elite retail districts from the riff-raff. The ramifications for American zoning at large are significant.

New York City Zoning Map: The first American zoning code turns 100 this year.
New York City Zoning Map: The first American zoning code turns 100 this year. - In his 1969 book Zoned American, Seymour Toll gives us "an in-depth history of the 1916 New York code, the progenitor of zoning codes nationwide, and the impetus for its creation. The received history of zoning often frames it as a creation of Progressive-era good government planners. But Zoned American shows that the code was actually created as a weapon to defend the narrow self-interest of a small group of prestigious merchants."  In a move that presages problematic zoning later in the century, "wealthy retailers based along Fifth Avenue were the advance guard of zoning in New York. Dubbed the Fifth Avenue Association, they believed their investments would be compromised by the northward advance of the garment industry and the hordes of foreign born workers that accompanied it." The zoning that emerged from these conditions had specific and recognizable prejudices. It sought to constrain density and height, separating uses to preserve "the northern stretch of Fifth Avenue—and Manhattan more generally—for businesses that catered to the wealthy."Stephen Smith, well-known as the voice behind @MarketUrbanism on Twitter, remarked, '"There wasn't some grand plan, zoning was taking whatever was there and freezing it [...] Toll convinced me it wasn't really planning, it was just reacting to whatever was already built.'" © New York City Planning Commission

Philadelphia lawyer Seymour Toll’s 1969 “Zoned American” was an influential part of the era’s reckoning with the subject. This West Philadelphia native, and current resident of Bryn Mawr, was inspired by his experiences in Philadelphia during the waning days of the Republican machine. As an intern with Edmund Bacon’s Citizens’ Council on City Planning he grew deeply interested in how cities worked and the hidden regulations and machinations that quietly crafted our built environment.  The book is an in-depth history of the 1916 New York code, the progenitor of zoning codes nationwide, and the impetus for its creation. The received history of zoning often frames it as a creation of Progressive-era good government planners. But “Zoned American” shows that the code was actually created as a weapon to defend the narrow self-interest of a small group of prestigious merchants.

Instead of civic-minded reformers, wealthy retailers based along Fifth Avenue were the advance guard of zoning in New York. Dubbed the Fifth Avenue Association, they believed their investments would be compromised by the northward advance of the garment industry and the hordes of foreign born workers that accompanied it. Their views are neatly summarized in a full page New York Times advertisement from March of 1916, which featured headlines like “The Factory Invasion of the Shopping District” and warned that “The evil is constantly increasing: it is growing more serious and difficult to handle. It needs instant action.”

The answer was a zoning code that sought to constrain height and density, to preserve the northern stretch of Fifth Avenue—and Manhattan more generally—for businesses that catered to the wealthy. 

“Toll really clarified the origins of zoning,” says Benjamin Ross, author of this year’s “Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism” (which includes a dissection of the role zoning plays in incentivizing urban sprawl). “He’s really the person who sussed out that both the planning movement and the wealthy homeowners were junior partners and at the lead was the real estate industry and other elite business interests. There are a bunch of more recent books about how zoning was approved in New York, but I think it’s all based on what he dug up.”