Local planners — global constraints

A number of reports have been published over the past few years documenting the evidence of decline in the northeastern U.S.A. and the simultaneous migration of industry to the U.S. Sunbelt. (Academy for Contemporary Problems, 1977; Sale, 1975; Sternlieb and Hughes, 1975). In developing appropriate recommendations to planners, such studies invariably urge that localities or regions facing industrial out-migration arrest this activity by making themselves more suitable and attractive (Council for Northeast Economic Action [CNEA], 1977a) within the framework of a number of characteristic strategies. We propose to examine critically some of the traditional strategies recommended by these reports.     

Private gains and public losses: The distributive impact of urban zoning

The zoning process is a distributive process in which benefits are conferred on some and denied to others. Because zoning decisions are not neutral in their consequences, politicians must take responsibility for the patterns of benefits and costs which result from particular zoning policies. Technical expertise and planning principles cannot be regarded as sufficient grounds on which to base inherently distributive policies. This paper analyses the distributional consequences of two rezoning cases in Toronto to illustrate the trade-offs between neighbourhood preservation and housing opportunity.This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, London, Ontario, May 1978.