[brudgers]

The effect of zoning is vanishingly small relative to the effects of money. An insurance company investing its reserves isn't going to change its risk tolerance just because zoning changes.

These people look at the numbers produced by their model and send their money where indicated. It's why Walgreens and CVS will build on two corners of the same intersection. Both have the same traffic counts and same catchment demographics.

[barry-cotter]

> It does but the dirty secret is that given enough money or interest zoning is a relatively weak opponent

Neither interest nor money are a given and the amount of either necessary varies wildly by jurisdiction. Even quite small obstacles can change outcomes a lot. Zoning has quite real effects.