Justin Fox, Columnist

The Benefits of 'Zoning Lite' in Houston

The city's lack of strict development rules has always been thought of as a bad thing. Look again.

May 17, 2016 at 10:00 AM UTC

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

Houston's skyline.
Photographer: Scott Halleran/Getty Images

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The city of Houston, as you may have heard, doesn’t have zoning.

It does have a bunch of land-use rules. There are neighborhood deed restrictions -- enforced by the city -- that keep shops and offices from popping up on residential blocks. There are also minimum-parking and lot-size requirements that shape development, historic districts, setback restrictions and other rules.