All of these things: "the worst apartments get put right next to the highway, industrial facilities can be co-located with your residence, and transport and sid

All of these things: "the worst apartments get put right next to the highway, industrial facilities can be co-located with your residence, and transport and sidewalks are a nightmare" happen in places with zoning. Houston is not perfect and certainly their transportation policy is not great, but zoning doesn't solve any of those. Lines on a map designating an industrial area and such seems so orderly, but in practice those zones have to butt against each other. Meaning it happens often that 'incompatible uses' go near each other. Zoning solves nothing about the real problems that zoning is supposed to solve, which is negative externalities like noise, traffic, etc. Those are best fixed with purpose built rules such as noise ordinances. Someone in a 'residential' neighborhood can have a car louder than an industrial plant. Zoning doesn't address that at all.