The Most Necessary Nuisance: How Gasoline and Commercial Garages Shaped Early American Zoning

Abstract

Gasoline was in various uses both before and during the adoption of the automobile, becoming a major source of fires around the turn of the century. This article shows how collaborative efforts to regulate gasoline from the late nineteenth century contributed to the special treatment of commercial garages and filling stations by early American zoning, which saw them as both threatening and necessary. Ordinances created exceptions and processes for these land uses that helped them multiply, and be proximate enough to serve wealthier and single-family neighborhoods, yet distant enough to not diminish their character and value.