Construction of buildings is regulated in Boston.

Town meeting passes the first zoning ordinance in Boston, when it orders, “There shall noe house at all be built in this towne neere unto any of the streets and laynes therein but with the advise and consent of the overseers of the towne’s occasions for the avoyding of disorderly building to the inconvenience of streets and laynes and for the more comely and Commodius ordering of them.”