# Density

> Density programs which spatial uses may occur, where, and at what intensity

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Stable ID | `node:kiduna:real-estate-mortgage:zoning-urbanism:density` |
| Family | Zoning, Planning & Urbanism |
| Domain | Governance |
| Era | Institutional Age → Collective Age |
| Kind | concept |
| Archetype | The Field |
| Claim layers | empirical, cultural_historical, synthesis, interpretive, symbolic_divinatory |

## What it is

Density is a concept in the Zoning, Planning & Urbanism family, defined here by the function it performs in the property system rather than by label alone.

## What it actually does

Density programs which spatial uses may occur, where, and at what intensity.

## Why it exists

It exists because place is unique and immovable while law, capital, information, and human lives must still coordinate around it across time.

## System mechanics

- **Who uses it:** owner, occupant, buyer, seller, lender, investor, steward, regulator
- **Incentives:** access, certainty, control, value, continuity
- **Inputs:** place, people, records, rules, resources, time
- **Outputs:** rights, constraints, uses, relationships, consequences
- **Dependencies:** Land, Authority, Information, Capital, Time

## Archetypal reading

- **Essence:** Density programs which spatial uses may occur, where, and at what intensity
- **Gift:** Clarity about density makes a hidden allocation of place, time, authority, value, or risk available for deliberate choice.
- **Wound / Shadow:** When density is treated as neutral or inevitable, its costs can be shifted to people who hold less information, authority, liquidity, or mobility.
- **Failure mode:** The failure mode appears when density is stale, opaque, mispriced, misrecorded, overextended, or applied outside the conditions that made it useful.

## Lenses

- **Personal:** Notice where density appears as a structure in your own commitments: what is held, promised, priced, protected, excluded, or deferred?
- **Business:** Density reveals a handoff among information, authority, incentives, operating work, and capital. Make the owner of each handoff explicit.
- **Financial:** Density changes the timing, priority, comparability, liquidity, or distribution of cash flow and risk.
- **Property:** Density changes how a physical place can be used, valued, financed, transferred, occupied, maintained, or reclaimed.
- **Community:** Density can create benefits inside one parcel while exporting costs or opportunity to neighbors, institutions, or future residents.

## Divination

The Field enters the reading through Density. The issue is not only what is visible; it is which map of ownership, time, risk, authority, or belonging currently governs the situation.

**Question:** What changes when Density becomes the unit of analysis?

**Guidance:** Shift scale, clock, stakeholder, boundary, and claim layer before choosing a move.

## Game function

Creates a graph move that changes the active map. Initiative 1.

## Relationships

- **Subdivision Approval prices Density.** Subdivision Approval prices Density through a change in rights, information, cash flow, priority, timing, or physical use.
- **Floor Area Ratio is administered through Density.** Floor Area Ratio is administered through Density through a change in rights, information, cash flow, priority, timing, or physical use.
- **Density depends on Parking Minimum.** Density depends on Parking Minimum through a change in rights, information, cash flow, priority, timing, or physical use.
- **Density documents Draw Request.** Density documents Draw Request through a change in rights, information, cash flow, priority, timing, or physical use.

## Oppositions

- Preservation versus Growth
- Market versus Planning

## Historical lineage and regulatory context

Read Density through the lineage of Zoning, Planning & Urbanism: earlier customary or local arrangements became recorded, standardized, financed, regulated, digitized, or contested over time.

Rules vary by jurisdiction and transaction. Use the cited primary sources as starting points and verify current local law, program guides, contracts, and professional standards before operational use.

## Visual direction

Text-free rounded-square enamel artifact for Density: one dominant symbolic mechanism with a restrained secondary counterforce; vitreous midnight enamel, blackened steel, warm brass, copper accents, mortgage-paper cream, deep green, slate, and sky blue.

## Engine output / Sentinel handoff

The generative interpretation above is preserved as Engine Output. Sentinel factors: jurisdiction-specific rules, factual uncertainty. These factors request contextual review; they do not delete or silently rewrite the candidate.

## Research / provenance

- [Energy Codes 101](https://www.energy.gov/cmei/buildings/articles/energy-codes-101-what-are-they-and-what-does-role) — U.S. Department of Energy; model codes, adoption, enforcement, building systems.
- [Housing Discrimination Under the Fair Housing Act](https://www.hud.gov/helping-americans/fair-housing-act-overview) — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; housing discrimination and protected classes.
