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<br />Ozzie and Harriet Don't Live Here <br />Anymore: Time to Redefine Family <br /> <br />By Dwight H. Merriam, FAlCP <br /> <br />The composition of American households has changed dramatically in the iast several <br />decades, but plans and regulations have not. <br /> <br /> <br />What do planners and zoning officials need to <br />know about these changes, and how should <br />plans and regulatiolls be altered to fit contem- <br />poraryhouseholds? <br /> <br />as Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, Leave <br />It to Beaver, and The 8rady BUllch represented <br />thetypicalhouseholdoftheperiod,oralleast <br />the ideal. The reality was that such families were <br />few and far between and that they were adept <br />atconcealingthepainfulrealitiesoffamilial <br />dysfunction. <br />Munidpal plans and regulations suffer <br />from the inertia of rest, holdingon long after <br /> <br />GONE ARE THE OLD DAYS <br />Baby Boomers-born between 1946 and 1964- <br />grew up in households profound\ydifferent <br />frorn those today. Period television shows such <br /> <br />84 <br /> <br />having outlived their usefulness. For exam- <br />pie, today's drive-up service prohibitions <br />are often merely a vestige of the disdain for <br />carhopsofthe195os,ar;d not a blatantdis- <br />regard fortoday's single mothers who need <br />to get prescriptions filled yet car;not herd a <br />gaggle of sick, screaming babies into a <br />pharmacy. <br />This issue of Zoning Practice exposes <br />the inertia of rest in the definition of family. <br />Whatmayhaveworkedsoyearsagoinregu- <br />\ating single-family uses when your author <br />was in the fifth grade, or even 20 years ago <br />when the new generation of planner sa lid <br />Zoning Practice subscribers were entering <br />school, is very different from American life <br />in 2007. The timeless challenge remains: <br />accommodating modem needs without <br />destroying the character of single-family <br />neighborhoods. <br /> <br />SHOW ME THE NUMBERS <br />On the Richter scale of demographics the <br />numbers point to a tectonic shift: <br />Married couples as percent of total house- <br />holds: down from 78 percent in 1950 to 5zper- <br />cent in 2000. The number has since fallen <br />belowthesopercentile.lndeed,themajority <br />household type today is single or unmarried <br />people. This is a tar cry trom Ozzie and Harriet <br />The storied married-couple household <br />where dad works and mom stays at home with <br />the children is represented ina mere 1.4 percent <br />of households today. In other words, on a typical <br />American street just one in seven of your neigh- <br />bors'homesisaLeeveittoBeeverhousehold. <br />Whatebouthouseholdsi2e?Thishas <br />also changed, shrinking like the gabardine <br />pants your post-boomer offspring threw in <br /> <br />ZONING PRACTICE 2.07 <br />AMERICANPI.AN~INGASSOOAll0Nlpog.' <br />