Zoning can be difficult for the average person to parse, but it has an immense impact on our lives—everything from housing to roads and green spaces are set by these rules. Zoning boils down to regulations of how land can, and cannot be used, whether commercial, industrial, and residential areas. From rising housing costs to struggling main streets and long commutes, zoning touches upon almost every aspect of our daily lives.  Sara Bronin knows this better than anyone. As a trained architect, attorney, and Cornell University professor, she has worked across many different fields of urbanism. Her work focuses on how policy can create more equitable and well-designed places. From land use to renewable energy to historic preservation and road design, her investigations into zoning offer fresh insight into how policies can be overhauled to benefit more people and their everyday lives.  For the last two years, Bronin was the head of the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate. She is also the founder of the National Zoning Atlas, which aims to highlight key aspects of zoning codes in an online, user-friendly map for public use.  Her new book, Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World, is a continuation of her research, and explores the little-known world of zoning codes and how they can be better used to improve American society. The book is an optimistic call-to-arms about zoning code changes. “I wrote the book so that people could have an ‘aha’ moment about zoning and understand that this hidden regulatory power at the local level has significant impacts on our world,” Bronin says. Key to the City looks at several U.S. cities and their zoning reforms. In Boston, the city is transforming into a haven for urban farming because of a law fought for by a group of organizers, farmers, and beekeepers; in Tucson, Arizona, zoning codes are drought-proofing neighborhoods in peril in the face of climate change; in Delray Beach, Florida, a new code aims to maintain the charming town’s vibrancy through architecture. I spoke with Bronin about the zoning’s impact on our lives, despite our sometimes not even being aware of it. Our conversation has been edited for clarity. You just published a book. Tell me about it? [Photo: Courtesy of Sara Bronin] I wrote the book so that people could have an aha moment about zoning and understand that this hidden regulatory power at the local level has significant impacts on our world. The book covers a wide range of topics from facilitating small businesses to making our food supply stronger and safer, to ensuring people have access to transportation, and of course, to providing people with a diverse range of housing options. I’m hopeful that the book will expose zoning’s immense power across various aspects of our lives. I was just reading about Long Island City and how there’s a new petition to rezone for more housing. Housing and zoning are hot topics being discussed right now. Zoning is a hot topic right now, and I hope it stays that way because we need to do a lot more talking and thinking about how we can make it better.  When it comes to zoning, I read that you’re an optimist. How so? I would definitely say that I’m an optimist about what zoning can do for us. There are some who say that we should abolish zoning altogether because it has done a lot of harm to individuals and to communities since local governments first started adopting zoning ordinances about a century ago. They’re right that zoning has historically had negative consequences: exclusion, sprawl, and public health effects. Provisions that exclude certain types of housing, particularly housing that’s most accessible to low-income residents, are deeply ingrained in zoning codes nationwide. The vast majority of American suburbs almost exclusively allow for single-family housing on large lots, and little else. But zoning can also have very positive and transformative powers. It can ensure that we integrate the environment into our development. It can ensure that people have lots of different opportunities for education, for jobs, for housing, for connecting with each other. It can also help us create a sense of order in our communities and to foster improved aesthetics that give us the beautiful places that we deserve. Is there a city that is doing zoning right?  For seven years, I chaired the planning and zoning commission of the city of Hartford, Connecticut, and with lots of public engagement, we were able to adopt an entirely new zoning code that has what I would consider to be some key components that other communities should consider adopting. Among other things, we eliminated minimum parking mandates, which lowers the cost of development and rejects the idea that we should be prioritizing car-related infrastructure.  We also legalized housing as of right, meaning that no housing proposals in Hartford