Federal flood-insurance requirements drove dramatic expansion of local floodplain zoning

Evidence

The nation’s leaders acknowledged the criticism in 1966, when a presidential task force headed by Gilbert White recommended a more comprehensive program to control flood losses, with land-use regulation as a vital tool. In the next decade, a series of executive orders and legislative acts turned the task-force recommendations into national policy. Hundreds of local governments also moved to regulate floodplain development. By 1970, almost a sixth of the nation’s cities and suburbs had taken action. After the federal government made floodplain zoning a requirement for participation in the subsidized flood-insurance program, the number of communities with floodplain regulations increased dramatically. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 700

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Insurance availability can incentivize municipal zoning and state flood-loss reduction — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1912; Floodplain residential construction skyrocketed in postwar boom cities — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 682

Broader Connections

• Floodplain residential construction skyrocketed in postwar boom cities #expands (0.75) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 682