Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our Lives

Just Communities welcomes Sara Bronin for a conversation on how zoning codes have long served as tools of exclusion and how we can reshape them to serve justice. As founder of the National Zoning Atlas and author of Key to the City, Bronin will walk us through how zoning can reinforce or disrupt the inequities and climate challenges that plague all of our cities.  Whether you work in planning, policy, housing, health, or education, this conversation will offer powerful insight into the rules behind the rules—and how we can change them.

What You’ll Learn

Participants will gain insight into:
• How zoning decisions shape community access and equity
• The connection between zoning, climate justice, and economic mobility
• Why zoning reform matters for housing, education, and public health
• Practical tools for identifying and challenging exclusionary policies

About the Speaker:

Sara Bronin is a Mexican-American architect, attorney, professor at George Washington University, and changemaker whose interdisciplinary work explores how law and policy shape more equitable, sustainable, and connected communities. She is the author of Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World, and the founder of the National Zoning Atlas and National Preservation Atlas. Her work brings transparency to land use rules that affect everything from housing access to climate resilience. Her latest book, Key to the City, explains how zoning codes operate and how reimagining them is essential for building more equitable, sustainable communities.