Here’s a useful tool for architects and planners as we enter the new year. The newly released National Zoning Atlas resource covers 30,000 U.S. municipal zoning codes and consolidates several different disciplines, representing the "most complex geocoded legal research project in the United States." The methodology for the atlas was first developed in 2020 by Cornell AAP professor Sara Bronin, who just announced her departure from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP). 

Authors from the nonprofit Land Use Atlas, Inc. state: "The National Zoning Atlas helps people better understand zoning, which in turn broadens participation in land use decisions, facilitates zoning reform, and narrows a wide information gap that currently favors land speculators, institutional investors, and homeowners over socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. It also enables comparisons across jurisdictions, illuminates regional and statewide trends, and strengthens planning for housing production, transportation infrastructure, and climate response."

You can try it out for yourself by visiting zoningatlas.org.