I've advocated in the past for noise based zoning and it was, to my surprise in HN pretty well upvoted. It's a great idea. I would offer too however that it should be noise and pollution. You can have a very quiet plastic melting factory killing a lot of people nearby.

Toxic waste and pollution is an example of an externality that absolutely should be regulated, but it's not necessary to do that via zoning. Just specify how much space such a factory must have to the nearest residential area in order to be built. That's not a zoning law. That's just a business usage law. Similar to how I can't make noise in my neighborhood past 10PM.

Thus why I mentioned "emissions".

As much as I love BBQ, if someone opened a restaurant and started smoking at 1AM everyday next to my house, I'd be pretty upset.

On the other hand, I probably wouldn't care if a couple of architects wanted to set up shop next to my house.

> "Zoning" in Japan, for example, is different. It sets things like minimum acceptable noise levels, emissions, traffic flows, etc. Within that, everything is allowed.

Again... this is NOT zoning.

Zoning is taking a parcel of raw land, subdividing it, and then, before anything is built, deciding what goes where. You'll say 'this square is a restaurant, slap a C1 zoning on it', and 'this square is a house, so slap an R1 on it'. You'll do this en masse, without any regard for the actual inhabitants or businesses occupying this district.

Things like setting minimum noise levels, street sizes, etc, are part of permitting. We can have a separate discussion here, but this is not 'zoning'.

Hard to image that working in the US even if the laws were to exist. I mostly see the loud commercial business acting with impunity. However, we are good at keeping the business from existing in the first place.