The courts have generally established that sex-oriented businesses can be regulated as to their location, but they cannot be banned completely from a community. They must be able to exist at some location or locations. Although citizens tend to see the proliferation of these businesses as a moral issued which whould be addressed on moral grounds, planners can only regulate them based on land-use regulations. Indeed, land-use regulations are the most effective means of control if they are used properly.
Planners have adopted two basic approaches to control sex businesses. One is the "divide and regulate" scheme made famous by Detroit, which, in simple terms, forbids sex businesses from locating too close to one another or to a residential district. The other is the Boston-style "concentrate and regulate" approach, in which all the sex businesses are shoved into one area.1Control of sex-related businesses can be a tortuous process, where oddity is the norm. But if controls are based on studies which look at impact on the surrounding area in the same objective way as is done for other proposals, a reasonable method of regulation can be developed. Such analysis can include traffic studies, impact on crime, tax consequences, and impact on surrounding commercial and residential areas. These form valid methods for evaluation of impact and the development of appropriate regulations, based not on emotional public reaction, but on good planning principles.
1 William Toner. 1977. "U.S. Cities Face Combat in the Erogenous Zone." The Best of Planning. Chicago: American Planning Association.
| Purposes of Zoning | Legal Aspects of Zoning |
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