Ideas from elsewhere: Zoning

Miami – From sprawlage to village
In Miami, a three-year project will replace the city’s old, sprawl-generating code with a new model, called Miami 21. The buzzword for the new code is "form-based"; it aims to create compact, traditional neighborhoods with building forms that create a coherent public realm. Famed New Urbanist architect Elizabeth Plater-Zybek, a Main Line native, argues form-based zoning can retro-fit Miami with the atmosphere of an urban village. www.miami21.org

Denver - Props for process
Already renowned for its redeveloped LoDo (lower downtown) warehouse district (home of the Colorado Rockies, hissss), Denver launched a three-step regional planning campaign that's a model for citizen engagement. It started with "Plan 2000," shaped by 11 citizen task forces. Next came "Blueprint Denver," a land use and transportation plan. These set up step three, the zoning code revision that's happening now. Throughout, Denver planners used listening sessions, open houses, and a website to keep the public on board. http://www.denvergov.org/ZoningSimplification/HomePage/tabid/396395/Defa...

Boston - A custom-made city
Rather than allow politicians to tweak neighborhood zoning at will, Boston invites neighborhoods to customize their own zoning district to match neighborhood goals. Intense civic involvement means this takes four years per neighborhood, with regular meetings of a citizen advisory committee guided by planners from the Boston Redevelopment Authority. They've been at it since 1989, with immense public buy-in. http://cityofboston.gov/bra/zoning/zoning.asp

Pittsburgh - Back to the future
Pittsburgh realized that, like Philadelphia, its ‘50s-vintage zoning code encouraged patterns of growth that were fundamentally suburban. So the city re-wrote the code over five years, and in 1999 rolled out a pattern for a more urban style of growth, which provided incentives to build near mass transit and simplified a labyrinthine city approvals process. The subsequent remapping effort, dubbed Map Pittsburgh, has been running for 10 years.
www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/cp/html/mapping.html#4