Houston famously has no zoning, but most American cities have some kind of planning and zoning. The Antiplanner’s faithful ally, Wendell Cox, divides these cities into two kinds: those with responsive planning and those with prescriptive planning.
Responsive planning, said Cox in his presentation (3.8MB PowerPoint show) to the Preserving the American Dream conference in San Jose, is planning that zones land in response to market needs as expressed by developer’s plans. Prescriptive planning, such as smart growth, tries to impose planners’ visions on the cities and surrounding countrysides.
