In 1924, during its early phase of mass suburbanization, West Hartford became the first Connecticut municipality to enact zoning regulations to manage residential, commercial, and industrial land use. This dual-view interactive tool allows users to compare maps from consultant Robert Whitten’s West Hartford Zoning report (1924) to the present. The original report stated that West Hartford’s primary function was to serve the housing needs of “all classes and all grades of economic ability. . .[including] factory workers, office employees, and the various business and professional groups” who work in Hartford. But it also separated town residents by wealth and excluded others who could not afford to live there. Zoning policies created residential districts with minimum lot sizes to promote more expensive single-family homes, thus making multi-family housing “uneconomic” to build, without expressly prohibiting it. Read more and share your comments at On The Line.

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