State of the Field: Zoning and Land Use Practice Shaping Peripheries

Zoning and land use practices are powerful tools for planners, yet often fly under the radar. Beyond the letter of the law, how municipalities implement land regulations can powerfully shift the timing, location and fairness of urban growth. Local planners deploy strategies and tools to direct day-to-day decisions, dancing into the ‘grey’ spaces of their political and legal mandates. This talk will chart these daily practices, why they matter, and how they can solidify into durable institutions that survive political transitions. Examples will draw on recent  fieldwork and computer vision analyses of new construction in Guadalajara, New York City, and Aleppo.

Bernadette Baird-Zars is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service of NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. As a partner at Alarife Urban Associates, she has consulted for the World Bank, the IADB and local and national governments on housing and land use. She is also a PhD candidate at Columbia University, where her work identifies patterns of land use practice and new arenas for local land development interventions under conditions of high risk and uncertainty. Recent collaborations include co-authoring a textbook on zoning and planning (Routledge 2019), an article on zoning relief in New York City (JPER 2018), and articles on institutional analysis for planning and language urbanism. Her current research has received funding from the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy and USAID/OFDA and Habitat for Humanity.