Compare methods

	Floor Area Ratio Analysis	Mixed-Use Index
Field	Urban Studies	Urban Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1916	1997
Originator	Zoning and planning practice (codified in mid-20th-century density regulation)	Cervero & Kockelman (land-use diversity / 3Ds); Frank et al. (entropy walkability term)
Type	Ratio of total building floor area to plot/lot area	Index of how evenly land uses are mixed within an area
Seminal source	Ben-Joseph, E. (2005). The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making. MIT Press. ISBN: 9780262025744	Cervero, R., & Kockelman, K. (1997). Travel demand and the 3Ds: density, diversity, and design. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2(3), 199–219.
Aliases	Plot Ratio Analysis, Floor Space Index, FAR Analysis, Building Bulk Ratio	Land-Use Mix Entropy, Land-Use Diversity Index, Herfindahl Land-Use Index, Entropy Land-Use Mix
Related	4	4
Summary	Floor area ratio (FAR), also called plot ratio or floor space index, is the ratio of a building's total floor area to the area of the lot it sits on, and it is the workhorse metric of zoning-based density control. A FAR of 2.0 means a building has twice as much floor space as its plot, achievable as a two-storey building covering the whole lot or a four-storey building covering half of it. Embedded in zoning codes since New York's 1916 ordinance and analysed in planning texts such as Ben-Joseph's study of urban codes, FAR analysis quantifies development intensity, sets buildable limits, and links regulation to the form and density of the built environment.	A mixed-use index measures how evenly different land uses — residential, retail, office, civic, industrial — are blended within an area, turning the planning ideal of vibrant, walkable mixed-use districts into a number. The dominant formulation borrows the entropy measure from information theory: a value near zero when one use dominates and near one when uses are perfectly balanced. Popularised through the 'density, diversity, design' framework of Cervero and Kockelman and embedded in walkability indices by Frank and colleagues, these indices quantify land-use diversity for studies of travel behaviour, walkability and urban vitality.