Keyhole Zoning: Fixing the broken Suburbs
Smaller homes, walkable pathways, and connected greenspace all within a car-free slice of the suburbs
Introduction
The advent of the early 21st century has come with its unique set of suburban challenges, particularly with car-culture and housing affordability. Urban landscapes worldwide are witnessing unprecedented changes, grappling not just with skyrocketing housing prices but also the detrimental environmental impact of car-heavy infrastructures. The current suburban designs are suffocated under the weight of sprawling roads, big, inefficient homes, and the incessant hum of engines. In the midst of this expensive cacophony, arises a fresh concept that offers hope - Keyhole Zoning.
The Magic of Keyhole Zoning
Keyhole Zoning is not just a strategy, but a vision. Imagine a picturesque, car-free, walkable avenue winding its way from the bustling heart of downtown, weaving through neighborhoods and stretching out to the rural, untouched fringes of the county. This route isn’t choked with cars, but alive with pedestrians, cyclists, and eco-friendly modes of transportation (e-bikes, scooters, feet and golf-carts).
Keyhole zoning gets it’s name from the shape of an old fashioned skeleton key-hole. The existing downtown of a county is the circle, and the greenbelt, multi-use pathway is the corridor extending from the walkable downtown. This sliver of the county is the keyhole zoning district. This zone provides the foundation for smaller homes, car-free transportation, and affordable suburban renewal. Watch our video on keyhole zoning here.
This ‘greenbelt’ isn’t just a walkway. It's a community. Tiny homes nestled amidst trees, local cafes with their aromatic coffees, small boutique shops with unique finds, and pocket neighborhoods creating micro-communities – all of it designed with an emphasis on human interaction and affordable, eco-friendliness.
Picture this: A young couple, just starting out, buys their very first home. They are not bogged down by crippling debts or sprawling mortgages. A senior citizen, after decades in a large family home, finds solace in a tiny house with just the essentials, surrounded by friendly faces and a sense of community.
My own county is a tragic example of car-centric, poorly planned, suburban sprawl. Growth overwhelmed this county and the county did not have a cohesive plan to manage the growth well. The best part of our county today is the historic, walkable downtown with little shops and cafes, which was designed literally 200 years ago in 1823. The best part of our county was designed two centuries ago... We have not improved on the original walkable design since then. Most metro counties in the USA are like this. They are all similarly covered in expensive roads with lifeless suburbs that nobody walks in. You need multiple cars as a family to exist here. Spending hard earned money on endless fuel, insurance, car payments and repairs. Taxes rise quickly to cover all the endless roadwork. Most of our counties currently lack the vision or creative thinking to design a more affordable, enjoyable, or unique environment. Once a pastoral rural county, growth was not managed well and now asphalt, cement and clogged roads spread out like tentacles over the county. It does not have to be this way.
Most counties in the USA today have large minimum square foot requirements for homes design, require massive parking lots of businesses, build for cars rather than people, and prevent walkable communities by not having mixed zoning. Why have we let our counties become so backwards? We need to abolish these backwards zoning rules.
Let’s review the many benefits of keyhole zoning…
Keyhole Zoning: More than Just an Ideal
Affordable Housing Options: Homeownership is a dream for many. Keyhole zoning's emphasis on pocket neighborhoods and tiny houses means that this dream isn’t distant anymore. It’s right here, tangible and attainable. Community gardens, connected parks, and the option to live without a car. Living locally becomes a true possibility.
Reinventing Communities: It's not just about walking. It's about fostering social interactions, promoting health, and revitalizing local economies, creating a ripple effect of benefits for the entire community. The keyhole community concept helps promote the little interactions we all crave. A happenstance meeting while walking on the pathways, a chance visit at the cafe, and the quiet connectedness from not being behind the wheel in traffic.
Economic Growth with a Local Touch: Keyhole-zoned areas are likely to witness a surge in local businesses. Artisanal shops, cozy cafes, and local service providers will find a thriving market, creating a unique local flavor. Foot traffic is key to small business success. Malls from the 1980s and shopping centers from the early 2000s are dead and soulless. It’s the late 1800s era walkable downtowns that people seek out. Those areas are gentrifying, and the wealthy move in. Why not rebuild that for everyone?
Nature at Its Best: Reducing our reliance on cars translates directly to reduced emissions and environmental degradation. Green pathways and lesser concrete jungles mean a significant drop in the urban heat island effect. Being within trees and forested areas has been proven to be good for our health. We should reclaim this way of living locally in a lush environment.
Practical Savings: The shift from vast asphalted areas to more green zones and walkways spells reduced infrastructure and maintenance costs. More suburban gardens, less parking lots. More trees, less fast-food restaurants. More walking and biking, less sitting in traffic.
A safe place for families and children: “Why don’t the kids play outside anyone?” The old people ask. Well, previous generations designed today’s communities to be filled with asphalt roads with giant hulks of flying metal zooming around everywhere. That’s why. Our suburbans homes are often built on zero lots with no yards, and cars totally dominate the roads and town. Why would the kids be outside? If every county had at least ONE keyhole community greenbelt from the downtown to the county edge, many children could enjoy the safety of a car-free environment with parks, shops, paths and homes all connected to an enjoyable multi-use greenbelt.
Implementing Keyhole Zoning: A Structured Approach
A vision, however grand, needs to be executed with precision. For Keyhole Zoning, the strategy is four-fold:
Educate and Empower: It starts with awareness. Workshops and sessions to spread knowledge about Keyhole Zoning’s potential are crucial. Use our free keyhole zoning template letter to write to your city, county and community leaders to share this vision and bring it to life.
Incentivize the Change: Change is always challenging. But with tax breaks for early adopters and other financial incentives, the transition can be made smoother.
Simplify Processes: An easy, clear-cut application and approval process ensures that potential participants aren't bogged down by red tape.
Hand-Hold with Expertise: Guidance committees can assist in this transition, offering expertise and advice to early adopters.
Harnessing Existing Assets: Rails to Trails
Our legacy infrastructures, like old railway tracks, are untapped assets. Converting these into pathways for walking or cycling is a smart strategy. This not only preserves history but also provides a ready framework upon which the keyhole zoning model can be built. Adjacent land can be used for pocket neighborhoods, small homes, tiny home communities, and other creative, alternative housing concepts.
Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Financial Sustainability
An average American spends a colossal sum on car-related expenses monthly. With the increasing costs of fossil fuels and the imminent need to mitigate pollution, can we really afford to maintain our car-dependent infrastructures? Keyhole Zoning offers a viable alternative, providing both financial relief and an eco-friendly solution.
Modern homes built by large builders are made very poorly, are energy inefficient (costing the owners more), and are entirely built around car-centric design. We need to ditch these broken home patterns in favor of long-term quality and affordability. Homes should be built for human well being, not for speed or profits. This means we need to become involved in building our homes again. We cannot leave this important task up to the tract-housing, national builders.
Making Walkability Universal
For close to a century, urban planning has, knowingly or unknowingly, made walkable communities a luxury that only the affluent can afford. This has deepened urban divides and fostered urban decay. Keyhole zoning offers the promise of leveling this playing field, making walkable communities a universal right, not a luxury.
Conclusion & An Appeal
Keyhole Zoning isn’t a mere proposition. It’s the synthesis of a vision for a brighter, inclusive, and greener future. The potential benefits are manifold, touching economic, environmental, and social dimensions of our lives.
It's a call to action, a demand for consideration, and a dream for a better tomorrow. It's time to bring this to the forefront of urban planning discussions, ensuring that our future is not just sustainable, but also inclusive. Together, let's reimagine, rebuild, and rejuvenate our communities.
We cannot complain about housing costs, car costs, pollution, or rising taxes if we’re not willing to do something about it. Everything starts with an idea. Here is the idea. We even wrote the first letter for you. With 3143 counties in the USA, we only need 3143 people to begin sharing this vision (and letter) with their community leaders. This is how we change things for the better. Are you game to reinvent our world? One local community at a time?
Use our free keyhole zoning template here to write to your city, county and community leaders. As funny as it sounds, it’s time for a zoning revolution.
Scroll farther down to watch our team’s podcast on keyhole zoning, or click here to watch the full video podcast!
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Another excellent report. Only problem is that by the time the developers and politicians take their cut, most of us peons can’t afford to live in such communities. I’ll take my land in the country, surrounded by freedom loving weirdo Rednecks any day.