[pchristensen]

> It never has.

Your point is much more valid in a car-centric (or car-enabled) world. Back when most industrial inputs and outputs moved by rail, and labor moved on foot, there were noxious and dangerous industries very close to housing. Just read up on Seattle's Skid Road. Pig farming wasn't in cities, but things like tanneries, slaughterhouses, sawmills, etc, were. Not to mention that at the time, almost everything was powered by coal.

Now, with electrical transmission and flexible truck-based movement of goods, it's a much safer world to let the market decide. But cities during the industrial area were really, really rough.

[Schiendelman]

And zoning didn't exist then. Zoning was created purely to keep black people out of neighborhoods. The first zoning attempts were entirely race based - SCOTUS overturned them in 1918. The same group came back and recreated zoning to keep apartment buildings out of white neighborhoods. The funny part? "Single family" zoning explicitly targeted black families, who didn't have the wealth for a house, and would buy larger houses as a two or three family collective.

Industrial zoning came much later, as a post hoc justification, long after that was an issue.

Zoning truly never has.

[goobatrooba]

Just to stress that the world is larger than the US. Zoning exists pretty much everywhere and the reasons for its introduction were diverse and mostly about quality yof life, citizen health, or city esthetics (keeping polluting businesses out).I have no view on whether what you're saying is true for the US, it is however definitely false for most other places.

[Schiendelman]

In the vast majority of the world, you can trace it to class and race. Feel free to give me an example location and I'll find you its history!