Our Services

Details Reviewed is a WBE specializing in unpacking zoning from its black box. Through education and research, we aim to make zoning more accessible and inclusive. Our clients include architecture firms, architecture schools and programs, non-profits, developers, government agencies, and real estate agencies.

Education

Zoning is a complex amalgamation of regulations impacting the places we live, work, and play. We seek to increase awareness about what zoning is and how it impacts day-to-day life, and how professionals and nonprofessionals can navigate the process.

Our guides on Pittsburgh’s interactive zoning map and zoning districts provide practical tips and insights to help understand what zoning districts regulate and how, and to help understand how to navigate the zoning application and review process.

We provide customized lunch & learns and lectures on topics from “Zoning 101” to “Zoning and Morality” for students and professionals.

Our illustrated, short story “Zoning Adventures: A Home Addition Paper Chase” is an easy introduction to the twists and turns that can impact a zoning application.

Research

Zoning is fundamentally exclusionary. Through our research, we seek to examine the intended and unintended consequences of how zoning laws segregate human-built places. We seek to push the conversation on zoning reform beyond small, piecemeal reforms, such as inclusionary zoning and accessory dwelling units, toward a critical examination of the foundation of zoning.

Our ongoing survey of morals in zoning is a mapping project that highlights the prevalence of "protecting or promoting morals” as justification for zoning regulations.

The second phase of research into zoning and morality explores the correlations between the location of Pittsburgh’s single-family and multi-family zoning districts, the 1930s redlined areas of the city, and the current and historic racial compositions of the city. The findings from this research are available on our Residential Zoning by Race page.

Phase three is currently underway in partnership with the UrbanKind Institute and is diving into the city archives and people’s lived experiences to “Unearth Injustices” in Pittsburgh’s land use policies and practices over the last 100 years. Findings from this research will be published in 2025.