Zoning and energy

[nancylebov]

A part of "America's love affair with the car" was that zoning guaranteed that work, housing, and shopping were physically separated in a lot of the country. I grant that the culture was affecting the regulations (if that sort of separation were intolerable to the vast majority, I don't think so much local regulation would have pointed in the same direction), but the zoning was also shaping the culture.

Now that energy is getting expensive and likely to remain so and there are concerns about carbon emissions, I've been looking for calls to change the zoning, but I haven't seen anything. Have you?

Inspiration for this post: An NPR news story about how houses near employment are keeping their value, and opening a possibility that both buyers and developers were underestimating the cost of commutes.