Tracing how codes arose when they did, and how they were adapted over time, the authors examine the increasing influence of regulatory codes over urban design and planning in the past century.

Eran Ben-Joseph holds the Career Development Chair in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning. He is the co-author of Streets and the Shaping of Towns andCities.
Terry S. Szold is a land use planning consultant and adjunct professor at MIT. She is the co-editor of Smart Growth.

1. On Standards, Eran Ben-Joseph Part I: Standards: Origins and Evolution 2. Design Standards: Whose Meaning, John R. Stilgoe 3. The Political Economy of Urban Design Standards, Peter Van Doren 4. Standardizing Public Housing, Lawrence J. Vale 5. Local Regulations and Housing Affordability, Anthony Downs Part II: Standards and the Shaping of Private Space and Public Realm 6. Using and Mis-Using Law to Design the Public Realm, Jerold S. Kayden 7. Sidewalk Democracy: Municipalities and the Regulation of Public Space, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Evelyn Bluemberg and Renia Ehrenfeucht 8. Facing Subdivision Regulations, Eran Ben-Joseph Part III: Private Land Use Controls: Voluntary Devices 9. The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society, Peter Gordon, David T. Beito and Alexander Tabarrok 10. The Benefits of Non-Zoning, Bernard H. Siegan 11. Protecting Palos Verdes: The Dark Side of Bourgeois Utopia, Robert M. Fogelson Part IV: Designed for Change: Regulatory Reform and Emerging Approaches 12. From Pollution Controls to Place-Making: The Role of Environmental Regulation in Creating Communities, William Shutkin 13. Role of Environmental Regulations in Shaping the Built and Natural Environment, Virginia S. Albrecht 14. Regulating as if Humans Matter: The Transect and Post-Suburban Planning, Andrés Duany and David Brain 15. Substituting Information for Regulation, J. Mark Schuster 16. Afterword: The Changing Regulatory Template, Terry S. Szold