Private deed restrictions are the opposite of government mandated zoning laws. Widespread use of zoning laws came in directly with the Progressive era in the late 19th and early 20th century as part of increased government control and central planning. They were pretty much limited to urban areas until after WWII, when “Progressives” pushed them, through federal “revenue” sharing into nearly all of the country. If you did not institute zoning, you were not allowed to receive some of the money that had been taken from you by the Federal government. Local governments found the combination of “free money” and increased power irresistible.
Zoning has often been sold as a means of keeping up property values, but I find it is far more about control of property by the local elites.
What exactly do you mean by “Progressive”? You’re putting it in quotes. Perhaps we aren’t using the same definitions. I agree that zoning laws were used by local elites, but they weren’t done so because those elites were Progressive.
The historical Progressives were interested in zoning as it kept dangerous and unhealthful property uses out of residential areas. That’s why they were pushing for zoning that included things like bans on slaughterhouses, sewer treatment plants, furnaces and factories, blacksmiths, pig and cattle farms, etc. They also wanted to eradicate tenements, by legally requiring such things as toilet facilities in each home, air shafts in multiple-family and multi-story dwellings, and fire escapes.
I personally do not have any problem with zoning laws that regulate these issues? I, personally, do not.
Elites that were interested in maintaining the high value of residential property. They wanted to keep segregated housing maintained by legal statute. These elites - who were actually anti-Progressive by philosophy - seized the concept of zoning in order to enact laws that protected what they believed to be their local interests.
People like Robert Moses are the ones that created the zoning laws that forbid mixed-use districts in cities and towns, creating residential, business and work-space ghettos. In the 20th Century, these laws elevated the care above the pedestrian. This zoning forced people to reside so far from their place of work or their markets that they could walk or use any transportation but autos.
My attitude about zoning laws has been most influenced by Jane Jacobs’ “The Life and Death of Great American Cities”, her “Cities and the Wealth of Nations,” and Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker.” If you aren’t familiar with Jacobs’ work, you might find yourself in deep agreement with it. Jacobs advocated the abolition of zoning laws and relying on the free market to determine land use.
Zoning is one of those issues that falls outside of the traditional “Right-Left” bifurcation. Is it a Liberal or Conservative value to empower individuals to control their own destiny and their own community? Is it a Conservative value to believe that the individual citizen should have the right to preserve his community in the face of pressure from an enormous corporation to use eminent domain to seize it because the corporate plans are arguably the “best economic use”? Should people in a community have the right to pass laws that restrict ownership of property from certain ethnic groups - because they don’t like the language. music, cooking smells, or just plain skin color? Should a person have the right to have a lead-smelting or iron-ore furnace on their property even if the air quality of the neighborhood is harmed? What about a pig farm, or a large chicken-production facility? (Man, can those things smell.)
Does the power of dollar trump all when it comes to property use?