In a well-written and well-reasoned article that was published by the Foundation for Economic Education on January 1st, George exposes the ugly truth about zoning in America. You should definitely read the whole thing, but here’s the Conclusion:

The adoption of zoning as a means of preventing external costs was ill-considered in the first instance. It led to inefficient use of land and at the same time caused many individuals to suffer great unfairness. Once this authoritarian power to restrict the uses to which a property owner could devote his land was acknowledged as legitimate, it followed inexorably that it would be misused to protect well-placed interests and exclude poor people from developing communities. In attempting to solve this government-created problem in the housing market, courts and legislatures have resorted to more of the statist medicine of coercion. “Inclusionary” zoning and “fair share” plans will not make more housing available to the poor, and will probably have the opposite effect. Then, we may confidently predict, government will react with yet more counterproductive laws and directives.

The radical solution to the chaos zoning has brought to land markets is to eliminate it. To be sure, people then will erect some buildings and do other things with their property that others will not like. If those uses actually interfere with the enjoyment of property by others, those people affected should be encouraged to sue in nuisance to obtain compensation for the damage done. If the offending use does not amount to a true nuisance—an apartment with poor people as tenants, or a building painted an ugly color—that is something people who live in a free society will just have to tolerate as one of the annoyances of life. The alternative to a regime of freedom in land use is zoning with its ever-present potential for waste and inefficiency, inequity and manipulation. Let us choose freedom.