Actually all developments of any size nowadays are planned down to
the tiniest details. Developers tend not to leave anything to chance.
It's really a question of, "Planning by who?" If it is left to "market
forces"
(commecial builders), *they* will do the planning, according to their
estimate of what is most profitable. That is likely to squeeze out other
options.
>As I said somewhere back there, a lot of the really awful suburban land
>use patterns (uniform low density, high degree of functional separation,
>etc.) are more often than not the result of planning code. As the _Home
>>From Nowhere_ book points out, the prototypical Main Street America has
>been outlawed in many places by zoning rules that keep types of housing
>apart, keep housing far from commercial districts (which are themselves
>kept far from other institutions like schools, hospitals), etc.
Planning codes are often simply tailored to what developers are already
doing.
For example, you can't blame the planning code for the low density sprawl
of the San Fernando Valley, where public transit is inefficient and
commercial
spaces are often far from housing.
That's because the developers had to get widespread
overrides on the then-existing city plan to do that. After World War II the
official city
plan for the San Fernando Valley was to retain much of it as agricultural
greenbelt,
and to channel development into corridors where it would be built to a more
urban
density, and where it might be served by light rail lines (the Pacific
Electric light
rail line to Van Nuys still existed then). That didn't happen. The
developers were
able to roll over the official plan, with all sorts of endless exceptions.
Exactly the opposite happened along Wilshire Boulevard in L.A. That street
runs
through a wealthy district and it was originally zoned as noncommercial. But
the developers were able to roll over that, they even threatened an
initiative, and
got it voided.
Where the city codes often do prevent commercial development near housing is
in small
wealthy suburban enclaves. For example, it isn't possible to build a gas
station
in Beverly Hills. The code won't allow it. But in the case of exurban
greenfield
developments, restrictions were minimal, the developers dealt with very
lenient
county Boards of Supervisors, not city building/planning departments. That's
exactly
why commercial developers prefer that type of development...fewer hassles,
they
don't have to negotiate with any established community groups, etc.
Tom Wetzel