Fundamental Planning Knowledge
What you must know
This domain rewards a coherent map of planning history, theory, and law. Anchor cases: Euclid v. Ambler (1926) upheld comprehensive zoning; Penn Central (1978) set the balancing test for regulatory takings; Nollan (1987) and Dolan (1994) require an essential nexus and rough proportionality for exactions; Lucas (1992) addressed the total economic wipeout; First English (1987) made temporary takings compensable; Mount Laurel (1975) established fair-share obligations against exclusionary zoning. Anchor statutes: the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act (mid-1920s) and Standard City Planning Enabling Act (1928), NEPA (1969), and the historic preservation framework. Anchor ideas: Howard's garden city, Burnham's 1909 Chicago plan, Perry's neighborhood unit, Radburn, Le Corbusier's radiant city, Jacobs' critique, Lynch's imageability, McHarg's overlay method, new urbanism, form-based codes, smart growth, and urban growth boundaries.
Traps
Date-and-author matching is common, as is confusing the zoning enabling act with the planning enabling act. Examiners also test whether you can distinguish Euclidean use zoning from performance zoning, and whether you know that Nollan/Dolan apply to adjudicative exactions rather than to all regulation.
Rule of thumb
When a question describes a development condition attached to a permit, think nexus and rough proportionality first; when it describes a broad regulation that leaves some economic use, think Penn Central balancing.