National Zoning Atlas

The National Zoning Atlas enables users to visualize the prevalence and nature of regulatory constraints, particularly on housing. The Zoning Atlas is an important tool to help people understand what their local zoning codes say; compare codes across jurisdictions, illuminate regional and statewide trends, and strengthen national planning for housing production, transportation infrastructure, and climate response. It also helps legislators and others realize plans to track and promote zoning reform efforts. In addition, this atlas could help increase participation in land use decisions, inform zoning reform advocacy, and narrow a wide information gap that currently favors land speculators, institutional investors, and homeowners over socioeconomically disadvantaged groups.

Communities interested in democratizing complex data to encourage participation in land use conversations may benefit from using this tool.