[zip1234]

There are way better ways than zoning to regulate negative externalities. For example, rather than blindly saying 'no commercial', a rule could regulate the bad parts of commercial, such as noise. Zoning is a blunt tool and pretty much fails at it's entire point.

[FastMonkey]

That sounds great on paper, but you would almost definitely get people squeezing around the letter of the law.

I mean, take noise. It seems easy to regulate because you just put a decibel limit on it, but that doesn't take the nature of the sound into account. So, you could have a business making crying baby sounds for dolls putting that out all day. It's really hard to define something like "no overly annoying sounds", and that's just one aspect of this kind of thing.

There needs to be a relaxation of the tight zoning rules we have these days, but trying to define limits on externalities has lots of problems too.

[fragmede]

The question is, at what level are those zoning decisions happening upon? Until that's being done at a planetary scale, anything else is forcing participants into a zero sum game in which everyone loves.

[heretogetout]

This sounds a lot more expensive and time consuming than broadly regulating by category, and for what is probably marginal gain. Why bother?

[mulmen]

How is “no noise” implemented if not ultimately through zoning? Sounds like you are arguing for higher resolution, not a new paradigm.

[noirbot]

It also puts the onus on policing. This is exactly the issue that people have with Airbnb and short term rentals. It's "evil" because it bypasses zoning because people "don't want to live next to a hotel or party".

If you're not going to push for zoning, then you're asking for one-off governmental agents to decide when something has gone too far.

[zip1234]

Noise rules could be quiet hours between certain times, rules about measured decibels, etc.

[mulmen]

Sure but the rules can’t be the same everywhere. They vary based on your zone, literally. That’s the entire point.

What you are describing is just zoning.

[noirbot]

Most places already have that, pretty much. It doesn't work, generally.

[pantalaimon]

Offices are not very noisy

[nradov]

Offices have a lot of noisy traffic.

[wrycoder]

There are levels of industrial zones, with specific businesses and industries allowed in each zone.

[ClumsyPilot]

could you quantify the "betterness"?