Land Use Planning

Image: Larchmont Village in Los Angeles, CA - an example of mixed-use. Source.

As you know, cities, towns, counties, etc. are all made up of land. All land is used for various things. Some land is used as peoples' homes - this is a residential use. Some land has businesses on it - this is commercial land. On some land, there are factories and manufacturing - this is industrial land. And on and on. Typical categories of land use include residential, commercial, industrial, open space (parks), and civic (government buildings, schools, libraries). There is also a land use called "mixed-use," which means that there are multiple kinds of uses for the land. Usually mixed-use means you can have residential and commercial on the same land. When you see a store with apartments on top (more common in big cities than small towns), that's an example of mixed-use. See photo above.

Cities and counties usually decide how land will be used ahead of time - this is land use planning.You can find land use maps of your city, and there will be different colors overlaid on the map. Each color represents a different land use. For example, green will be open space.

Land use planning is not just about saying what land use goes where. Land use planning also says how much can be built. This is density, or how crowded it can get. A dense place is very crowded, like Manhattan in New York city. A low-density place has only a few people living in a big area.  Controlling density is important because it affects other parts of the city. If you have a very dense place, you're going to need to figure out how people and goods get there. If you have a very low-density place, you won't need as many schools.

One tool used in land use planning is zoning. Zoning is just what it sounds like - you divide up land according to zones, or land uses.  Zoning is complicated, and a lot of cities have very intricate zoning codes. Zoning is complicated because there are zones for each land use, and zones for each sub-category of each land use. More on zoning later, but it also can help land use planner dictate density, which adds another layer of complexity to zoning codes. You might see these kinds of zoning: multifamily residential, single-family residential, high density commercial.  See how density and land use are combined, imagine how many combinations of zones there might be.

Some cities do not have this planned out, like Houston, TX. Houston is maybe the only big city that doesn't have a zoning code. (But it does regulate land use in other ways.)

Land use planning is important because a lot of uses can't be put next to each other. For example, it would probably not be a good idea to allow factories to be built near schools.

You might be wondering why land use planning is still important, especially since most cities are already built. Land use planning is still relevant bc sometimes land uses evolve and need to be updated. Maybe you used to disallow residential areas near your downtown area, but maybe you want to revisit that. Maybe you want to change the zoning to allow mixed-uses, so people can turn the empty upstairs offices into apartments. Land use drives the way the city grows and looks, so planners update land use maps every so often accordingly.

My 2¢: I really liked learning about land use planning when I was in school, bc it's one of the forces that really affect the vibrancy of cities. There's a very direct connection. When there are mixed-uses, cities tend to be safe and lively, with lots of people around. When residential areas are separated from places that people work and play (suburbia), it sucks! Mixed-use good, segregating uses bad.