Richard A. Epstein: "Classical, Liberal, Rational" writes in the Wall Street Journal

Please note that Richard lumps zoning in with minimum wages and "progressive" taxation as one of the evils of the modern "welfare" state. He does not go into it, but actually zoning and land-use planning in general (ruled over by soviet-style committees of busybodies quite reminiscent of the neighborhood soviet goon-squads depicted in Dr. Zhivago which aroze to divvy up the spoils in post revolution Russia) is one of the more corrupting institutions in modern day America, pitting land owner against land owner in a race to use the political means of coercion and violence to trump the marketplace.