Who designs cities? Architecture school may lead young designers to believe that their profession shapes the spatial and aesthetic qualities of the built environment, but a look at the composition of city planning boards suggests otherwise.

City planning has existed for millennia. The Roman castrum, the Spanish Law of the Indies, and Puritans’ utopian plans for cities like New Haven, Connecticut, all used precise grids to organize urban space. Nevertheless, city planning in its contemporary form is integrally related to zoning, which began in New York City.

In 1915, a 42-story skyscraper called the Equitable Building was constructed. The 1916 Zoning Resolution followed. Regulating the height and bulk of new buildings, the resolution controlled the rapid growth of the many tall buildings that sprang up on the island of Manhattan as steel framing and elevators revolutionized architecture and building technology. Today, zoning controls much more than height and bulk, underwriting not only what can be built but what uses and people can exist throughout the built realm.

In 1936, the City Planning Commission (CPC) was established with six members. According to New York’s Planning Board, the original CPC “was staffed with engineers, architects, experts, and other officers and employees as needed.” Today, the planning board has thirteen members. Seven are appointed by the mayor, including the Chair. The rest are appointed by the Borough Presidents and the Public Advocate.

Other large American cities have planning boards, too. Los Angeles, for example, has a nine-member CPC. According to the Online Archive of California, the CPC was established in 1910, but it wasn’t until the 1940s that LA’s CPC began to “develop height, area, density, and parking regulations, and standard zone categories.”

Houston has a Planning Commission with 26 members all appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. It includes “citizens, elected officials and the Director of Planning and Development.” Because Houston has no zoning code, the commission is primarily concerned with the subdivision of plats, which has the indirect effect of regulating what kinds of projects can be built.

In all cases, architects are not the primary members of planning commissions. In New York, for example, the CPC’s Chair, Marisa Lago, is a lawyer with extensive government and development experience including time at the US Department of the Treasury, at Citigroup, and the World Bank. The commissioners include three people with training in architecture; the remaining eight are lawyers, real estate developers, and businesspeople.

This is a snapshot of the interests and expertise shaping cities, whether or not the planning boards themselves are the ones truly calling the shots.