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Faced with mounting social needs and continuing fiscal constraints, more and more cities “mint” money through their zoning codes to finance a wide array of public amenities. Through the land use regulatory technique formally known as “incentive zoning,” cities grant private real estate developers the legal right to disregard zoning restrictions in return for their […]

What are design codes? Design codes are not created equal. Some carry the force of law; others enjoy only the power of persuasion. Some are enacted by government; others are entered into consensually by private parties. Some are spelled out in advance through written rules; others are revealed case-by-case through a discretionary review process. Some

In 1961, the City of New York, employing the device of law, inaugurated a new category of public space, “privately owned public space,” for use by its residents, employees, and visitors. Through a legal innovation subsequently known as incentive zoning, the city granted floor area bonuses and other valuable regulatory concessions to office and residential

“To design is human, to implement, divine,” I have argued in loose adaptation of Alexander Pope’s well-known aphorism. By implement, I mean the carrying out of a design or plan for the city through a specific set of tactics and techniques that I sometimes analogize to a three-legged stool with legs of law, finance, and

At the time of this writing, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is front and center in the news. The mounting numbers of dead and wounded stun the imagination. The creation of millions of refugees crossing into Poland and other Eastern European countries testifies to the indiscriminate brutality of war. Those of us in the professions of