A Review of Federal Zoning Cases and an Estimate of the Effects of the Case of the Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Company upon Cases in the State Courts

Article XIV. Section 1. "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."Within these terms of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States may be found the basis for the attacks upon the constitutionality of zoning regulations in the courts of the United States. The framers of the Amendment, living in a period of comparatively simple urban life, could not have realized the bearing which this important Amendment would have upon subsequent municipal legislation. Yet, since the terms of the Amendment were designed primarily to protect the rights of individuals, and since zoning is so directly associated with the guarantees of equal protection of the laws and the protection of life, liberty, and property, it is not difficult to understand the relation of the Fourteenth Amendment to zoning legislation. State Constitutions have their own due process clauses, and in zoning cases arising in state courts the holdings of the courts are usually baaed upon the interpretation of state due process clauses.