Euclidean Zoning: How Our 'Arbitrary and Oppressive' City Planning Scheme Got Its Name

The practice of separating homes, businesses, and factories into their own dedicated districts is called “Euclidean zoning.” Given that Euclidean zoning involves the slicing and dicing of city maps into color-coded districts, you might assume it is named after Euclid, the ancient Greek “father of geometry” who laid down the rules for drawing lines and shapes on flat planes. But if you ask an urban planner, he will tell you that Euclidean zoning is actually named after a town in Ohio.

In 1922, Euclid, Ohio, passed a comprehensive zoning code to protect its small-town character from expanding, industrial Cleveland next door. The code drew the ire of the Ambler Realty Company, which objected to the town’s imposition of a residential-only zone on a piece of land it had hoped to use for industrial development.

The company promptly sued, which ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s 1926 decision in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. While zoning might have been “arbitrary and oppressive” 50 years ago, Justice George Sutherland wrote for the majority, the complexities of modern urban life required local governments to carefully plan which land uses were allowed where. “A nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong place—like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard,” he said.

In upholding Euclid’s restrictions, the Court gave municipalities across the country wide latitude to zone as they pleased. Following that ruling, almost every other community in the country followed the Ohio village’s example by adopting a “Euclidean” zoning code.

The urban planners of the 1920s might have thought they could carefully regulate the modern industrial city to everyone’s benefit. Instead, zoning codes have grown more “arbitrary and oppressive.”

Urban planners who still support Euclidean zoning are not just wrong about policy. They are also wrong when they say Euclidean zoning is not named after the famous mathematician. Euclid, Ohio, was founded in 1796 by teams of surveyors who decided to name the town in honor of the Greek sage, to whom they owed a tremendous intellectual debt.

In short, Euclid, the man, lent his name to Euclid, the town, which lent its name to the Supreme Court decision that blessed what became known as Euclidean zoning. Those extra steps notwithstanding, Euclidean zoning is named for the author of Elements, Optics, Data, and Phaenomena.

That’s certainly a crazy accident. The Supreme Court case that established the government’s power to divide up maps into tiny shapes is named after a town that was itself named after the guy who invented the practice of dividing up maps into tiny shapes. With coincidences like that, what fool thinks he can plan anything, let alone a city?

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