Zoning as we know it basically began in nineteenth-century Europe. Industrialized cities were shrouded in coal smoke, so urban planners rightly suggested that factories be separated from residential areas. Life expectancies soared, the planners gloated, and segregation quickly became the new solution to every problem. So, while in the beginning only the incompatible functions of a town were kept apart, now everything is. Housing is separated from industry, low-density housing is kept separate from existing, higher-density housing, and all of this is kept far from restaurants, office buildings and shopping centers, which are all kept separate from each other.
With the dispersal have come mandatory car ownership and the end of pedestrian life as we once knew it. Where no worthwhile destinations can be easily reached on foot, there are no pedestrians, and where there are no pedestrians, there is no vitality.
This separation has simultaneously brought about an increase in the perceived need for ultra-autonomous houses. The idea that a house should contain everything its occupants could ever possibly need and then some is certainly not a new one, but it has achieved unprecedented popularity as houses have become increasingly remote from the services they traditionally relied upon. It now seems that every new residence must contain not only its own washer, dryer, dishwasher, high-speed internet access and big-screen home entertainment center, but enough kitchen, bathroom, dining and living space to serve as a nightclub for forty. The needs fulfilled by the corner grocery and local bar in our older neighborhoods are now assumed by 700 cubic-foot refrigerators and spacious, walk-in pantries. The resources currently required to support several million personal outposts cannot be sustained.
