Did Euclidean Zoning Set the Stage for Online Dating?

On the bus to work today I saw, from an almost bird’s eye view, a slew of haphazardly placed signs along the roadside advertising singles dating websites. How did this online trend find its way to the street? My Urban Planner brain wondered if it could be a direct or indirect result of land use and zoning. Technology aside, why weren’t people advertising dating services at every street intersection 20 years ago?

For the moment, here’s my theory: Euclidean zoning (1926 Euclid vs. Ambler) not only lays the groundwork, but also serves as the foundation for isolationist land use planning. Zoning doesn’t just isolate development and land use types; it secludes people, ideas, experiences, and ultimately reduces opportunities for happenstance meetings. In 1980 (the era that rang in the not-so-glorious strip mall development patterns), William H. Whyte wrote about chance meetings in The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Watch this short, telling (albeit dated) video clip for a great illustration of Whyte’s emphasis on places, such as street corners, and their role in human interaction.

Despite these observations and lessons of simple truths, we as a society either built, or let get built, a world severely lacking in possibilities for human interaction. Compounding the problem of isolation zoning (a. k. a. Euclidean zoning), developers and decision-makers are fixated on building places that accommodate our vehicles. Has this focus on car-friendly environments—note the oxymoron—altered the way we interact with each other? Of course it has. I’d argue that zoning has in fact created a demand for alternative ways to connect…which brings me back to the popularity of online dating and the river of advertisements flowing down the road.

We may be more educated now about the effect of 1980’s development patterns and the detriments to isolation zoning, but we’ve created so many more barriers to actually implementing sound development patterns that encourage and entice basic interaction with each other and our environment. Tackling the why and how of this conundrum is precisely what contemporary planners need to be doing if they hope to shift this negative trend in a positive direction.

I already feel a sense of nostalgia when I hear people say they met somewhere other than the Internet. I’m immediately drawn to their story, and I think there will be more stories like theirs. Movements and efforts to change our isolationist ways are cropping up everywhere. I’m hopeful that my children will meet all kinds of people on the busy 21st-century corners of their lives, and that they’ll think it’s the newest, hippest thing to do.

Here’s to blazing new trails (even if they are well worn paths).