[8note]

Industrial processes have a large surface area of different risks and hazards, and physical distance from where people live is a good way to mitigate all of them. Eg. Explosions, toxic chemical spills, electrical noise, air pollution etc.

They also need heavy transport, which wears out road infrastructure much more quickly than light vehicles. Keeping residential streets largely clear of heavy traffic means you can focus repairs and replacements of road surfaces in the industrial areas.

Zoning isnt the only way to solve these problems, but it's a good one

[spenczar5]

It seems like this would depend a lot on the industry, and on scale. If somebody is, I don't know, assembling board games, I think that sounds fine next to a school. If they're refining crude oil, well, that sounds more likely to have the problems you describe.

But "zoning" attempts to resolve those issues by carving territory up, not by requiring a particular physical distance. Zoning maps have boundaries which still have the problems you describe, right?

It seems a lot more reasonable to target the specific issues (noise, air pollution, etc - the stuff you descibed) rather than attack this via zones.

Of course, you said a similar thing too, so we probably 80% agree. But can you explain the remaining 20% - when is zoning ever a good way to solve these problems?

Further - is there a case to be made for zoning aside from moving really heavy industry away from really residential neighborhoods? My city has dozens of zones, carefully segregating walkable retail regions from single-family homes, which doesn't seem so defensible.

[andbberger]

Zoning is a terrible terrible way to solve the heavy goods transport problem the states have. Fines proportional to vehicle wear would be a better way to do it, incentivizing use of industrial rail spurs. Switzerland is the place to look for inspiration on this.