> more intermingling of different types of property use than I'm used to seeing in the eastern US
My experience in Houston was miles of big box stores lining the service roads parallel to I-10, and miles of single-family single-use housing development communities in south Houston. Retail was quite separate from housing, miles away, and traffic could be horrible. The occasional gas station and small plaza with a nail salon and maybe a chinese restaurant was the only thing in between. I feel sorry for the friends I had who grew up there - too far away from anything to walk or bike to, playing in a drainage creek for lack of anything else nearby. Maybe older parts of the city are different?
I don't agree with the libertarians if their goal is to allow large developers to profit by building cheap neighborhoods on the outskirts of town and impose restrictions limiting what people who live there can do and build. No apartments can be built on the lot you own, no ADUs, no starter houses, no corner cafes or pubs to socialize at, no other retail areas in the community. Nothing but single family homes, and rules on what kind of lawn and bushes are allowed. Maybe this is libertarianism for large developers only?
I grew up in a rust belt city in the north east, and within a few city blocks were two streets full of retail - small supermarkets, drug stores, barbers, a bakery, dry cleaner, dentists and doctors, a library, music shop, a hardware store, pizza places, churches, bus routes to the rest of the city, etc.
The pattern I've noticed is that "they don't build them like the used to". Pre-WW2 neighborhoods were not built with the assumption that everyone had cars, so they were more dense and could support businesses within walking distance. For the past several decades single-family HOAs have become popular, where a large developer buys cheap land on the outskirts of town and sells large tracts of cookie cutter housing to the public. Zoning policies make it more difficult for anyone trying to do anything different, and difficult for anyone who is not a large developer.
I like the way Japan does zoning. They have separate industrial and commercial areas, but allow triplexes and low-impact retail everywhere in place of single family housing.