The Zoning Map and American City Form

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As a city planning historian, I spend much of my research time in archives. Researching zoning history as part of another project, I noticed that some urban public libraries archived early zoning maps as part of collections of real estate atlases, fire insurance maps, street maps, and plans while others did not. I wanted to know what happened to these illustrations of dead futures, these obsolete city administrative tools, where they might be archived or preserved, and what factors influenced their invention in the early twentieth century.

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