Planning the Post-Pandemic City Online Lecture Series

The global COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and magnified issues of urban inequality and environmental justice. Quarantine measures and the shut down of city centres have highlighted the extent to which urban land is dominated by road and car parking infrastructure. In many places, air quality has improved, nature has become more prominent and neighbours are starting to speak for the first time. This online lecture series organised by the Planning Society at Queen's University Belfast, will explore, through comparative practice, how planning can re-imagine our cities to enhance well-being through creating more vibrant, sustainable and biodiverse places.

City planner, M. Nolan Gray argues that it’s time to abolish zoning. In Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It, Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common confusions and myths about how American cities regulate growth and examining the major contemporary critiques of zoning. During this presentation, Gray will set up some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and chart how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city.

M. Nolan Gray is a professional city planner and an expert in urban land-use regulation. He is currently completing a Ph.D. in urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gray previously worked on the front lines of zoning as a planner in New York City. He now serves as an Affiliated Scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he advises state and local policymakers on land-use policy. Gray is a contributor to Market Urbanism and a widely published author, with work appearing in outlets such as The Atlantic, Bloomberg Citylab, and The Guardian. He lives in Los Angeles, California and is originally from Lexington, Kentucky.