One man zoned huge swaths of our region for sprawl, cars, and exclusion - Greater Greater Washington

One man zoned huge swaths of our region for sprawl, cars, and exclusion - Greater Greater Washington

Historical sketch of a planner who shaped zoning and urban design in St. Louis, the Metro Washington area, and many other cities.

"On Wedges and Corridors is regularly cited as the framework underlying Montgomery [County, Maryland,]'s current plans, and the county's agricultural reserve faithfully fulfills its vision for the wedges. But the county's success in creating lively urban centers rests on its rejection of the plan's prescription for the 'urban ring' - the area inside and just beyond the Beltway that suburbanized before 1960.

"As he had in the District in the 1920s, [Harland] Bartholomew made preservation of upscale single-family neighborhoods a paramount goal. 'How many more people,' On Wedges and Corridors asks, 'can crowd into your community before you feel completely "hemmed in"?... Without planning, a prospective home owner can buy a piece of property and a house, but he cannot purchase an unchanging environment.'"

The article quotes Richard Rothstein in The Color of Law about the effect of the work Harland Bartholomew did in St. Louis:

"The St. Louis zoning ordinance was eventually adopted in 1919, two years after the Supreme Court's Buchanan ruling banned racial assignments. With no reference to race, the ordinance pretended to be in compliance. Guided by Bartholomew's survey, it designated land for future industrial development if it was in or adjacent to neighborhoods with substantial African American populations."

Two years later, Tulsa city officials would attempt to use land use regulation to prohibit residents from rebuilding the destroyed Greenwood district, with the intention of repurposing the land for industrial use.