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Expanding Choice Researchers seem to agree that local government regulation works to shape metropolitan development patterns. Local policies include zoning that limits densities and mandates land use separation, transportation standards that call for wide streets and generous parking requirements, and fiscally motivated practices that restrict development of alternatives to the large lot and single-family house. But there is less acknowledgement of one implication of this regulatory regime: these policies prevent some households from getting the transportation and land use options they prefer. Advocating accessibility-based land use alternatives does not mean more regulation forcing these designs on an unwilling market. Instead, local government regulations that currently preclude these alternatives need to be loosened, permitting the market to provide them where economically viable. Local government can prevent, allow, or facilitate higherdensity development, but it is ultimately unable to require such development. A city council may desire development of a transit village at a particular site, but without a developer who sees the potential for profits the development will not occur. Higher density development forms are typically portrayed as the products of planning and regulation of the land market, but the reality is actually the opposite: current municipal planning practice typically seeks to lower development densities. Reducing regulatory constraints is a prerequisite to the accessibility-based land use alternatives discussed here. This argument is not intended to criticize land use regulation per se. Such intervention arose from early reformist …