From Connecting Communities: A Guide to Integrating Land Use and Transportation produced by Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study in September 2010. The text accompanying the zoning inventory reads:

Zoning is a powerful regulatory land use planning tool used by local governments. It typically separates uses, such as residential, business and industry, but can also be based on physical layout and design. Zoning regulates what type of activities are permitted and where, including density, lot size, building height and requirements for parking and landscaping.

It is critical to understand how the region is zoned because it controls where development can go and at what intensity. The majority of the region's current zoning encourages sprawl by zoning large amounts as low-density residential and discouraging mixed-use, transit-oriented development. Approximately 80 percent of the region is zoned residential; of which 61 percent has a minimum lot size of half an acre. Only 3.5 percent is zoned for open space and 1 percent is zoned mixed use. This demonstrates how the region could develop in the future if unchanged.

The zoning inventory was created by compiling community zoning codes into generalized categories.