yes, one should always remember when reading shit from cato that its an evil PR firm.
The effect a new structure has on its surroundings is an extremely important externality to measure and regulate. I want to be able to not only buy or rent land, but also be able to buy or rent land with restrictions on what can be allowed around it.
The most obvious example of when i have this right is when a major polluter pops up in my backyard, but light, noise, traffic, smell, and even view are all thing that should be protected to some extent. Or at least protectable.
Developers do not natively care about these externalities, and zoning is a coarse way of preventing that disconnect from completely destroying cities. It is a very complicated problem, and the cato institute is suggesting that we let investors make as much money as they can at the cost of those externalities, and because they are an evil PR firm, they dress that claim up as being good for the health of cities
Moreover, the fact that the cato institute is an evil PR firm is absolutely a general aegumwnt that the things that they say are bad faith, bad arguments. If you cannot come up with why they are wrong on your own, you should trust the dont trust cato heuristic, because the entire purpose of PR is to dress up evil as good.
I agree that zoning shouldn't be done away with entirely.
I think you're mostly right about developers not caring. Even the ones that care on a personal level are still in business to make money, but I really think the word evil is overused and hyperbolic in this situation.
I've done work for developers trying to squeeze every dollar out of a lot. They can be indifferent, greedy, and even antisocial but I haven't encountered evil.