A two-limit tobit model of suburban land-use zoning

The impact of local land-use controls on the location of economic activity is an important issue in need of further research. The purposes of this paper are to provide a clear descriptive analysis of the zoning pattern in a portion of the suburban area of metropolitan Chicago, and to examine the changes in zoning that took place in the period 1960-80. The paper shows that zoning does change, and that zoning changes are at least partially systematic. The study is motivated by the relative lack of microanalytic studies of the zoning process and the need to predict land use for purposes of urban housing and transportation modeling or analyses of demand for utilities and public infrastructure. The basic working hypothesis is that local zoning officials tend to respond to market forces in a way that attempts to anticipate potential conflicts in land use. -Authors