project would entail a decisive break from conventional forms of zoning that overly segment commercial, residential, and industrial activities. Building codes, for their part, are ostensibly a repository of societys accumulated wisdom on questions of health, safety and effectiveness of building practices. To some degree they actually are. But building codes in the developed countries have evolved in tandem with the trend in construction toward ever-higher levels of technology and the use of more highly-processed industrial materials. This has been a move away from many traditional low-impact materials and methods. As David Eisenberg (2002, p. 28) writes, Many of the worst examples of architecture and building are the short-lived, highimpact structures that today are being built all over the world out of codeapproved materials and systems. Some of the oldest building materials and methods of construction can be seen in some of the most beautiful and enduring buildings in the world. Yet we have relegated indigenous, natural, low-tech materials and building systems to the status of alternative materials and methods, even though in many climates, indigenous buildings are far more comfortable and less expensive than the modern buildings that have replaced them. This has been possible because building codes ignore where materials come from, how efficiently theyre used, and whether they can eventually be reused. Among other things, they ignore the impacts of extraction, manufacturing and disposal, as well as the level of embodied energy. Building codes as we know them now cover about a third of the worlds buildings, and in these richer countries they have assured a higher level of safety and stability. But because they so foster resource-intensity they could not be applied to the rest of the world, since the planet does not possess enough resources. Whats more, even in the developed countries, the role of building codes in protecting public health and safety has been undermined by the increasing use of synthetic