I live in an area with occasional grandfathered-in exceptions to zoning rules. There’s a cafe run out of a house, and a butcher shop run on a residential street corner between houses. And its absolutely lovely!
I would have no problem with people making things (“a factory”) next to a school.
yes you would, if it were a large plastics manufacturer bringing large amounts of truck traffic and noise pollution and spewing carcinogenic PCB compounds into local atmosphere.
Gigantic factories don’t want to be on small residential streets anyway because they cant fit the trucks in, so I think that argument cuts the other way - there are natural forces that deter that stuff.
Make no mistake, the protection is more often than not for the local tax base. There more than enough examples of zoning changes approved because the change offers a multiple of new tax revenue.
of course we don't want anything carcinogenic or that dangerous anywhere where people live.
that doesn't invalidate GP's main point that schools need safe and calm environments.
There are alternative mechanisms for getting peoples' local preferences. City- or county-wide zoning maps rarely change, and - at least in Seattle - don't seem to respond to individual citizens desires or concerns in the way you imply. Are zones really the right tool for the job?
Instead, we have zoning, where we can say "build your factory here if you don't want to worry about residential complaints" or "build your house here if you don't want a noxious odor, noise, and constant semi traffic bothering you."
If you think that there are situations where preventing some kinds of things (say, a toxic landfill) from being constructed next to other kinds of things (say, a preschool) is desirable, and that there should be rules around that, and that most people want an elected government to make and enforce those rules, that ought to explain why the commenter you responded to said zoning is important. Even if you disagree with any of those clauses, I think you'd understand why they felt that way.
But replace cute cafe in your example with a landfill or a cement plant and see if it's still awesome.
This is why some zoning is good.
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
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.
A factory isn't just "making things", though. There might be semi's coming and going making traffic more dangerous, there could be materials left out that are dangerous to kids if they wander through the wrong fence, maybe there'll be loud noises that are detrimental to kids' concentration during tests.
There's plenty of reasons industry is usually put outside of towns.
