Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It

Abstract

Zoning has broken American cities, argues M. Nolan Gray in his recent book Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. The answer, Gray argues, is to discard America’s current zoning system in favour of a more libertarian approach focussed on discrete issues such as noise, pollution and other disamenities that were, in fact, the ostensible justification for the implementation of zoning in the first place. Though the main message of Gray’s argument runs throughout the book’s eleven chapters, the punchline – spoiler alert – comes in the conclusion: