Having lived in a zoning-free US city (Houston), I can't say that I'm a fan of "build wherever you want". It leads to large disorganized, unwalkable and inaccessible areas that just don't make sense from an infrastructure standpoint.

People complain about how bad zoning is, and I agree that municipalities can get carried away with it, but most people highly underestimate the impact zoning has had on their lives and take even moderately executed city planning for granted.