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Comment by hoosieree | Hacker News Reader

The xenophobic origins of zoning law is a cautionary tale for today. "I got mine, screw the rest of you"... but sooner or later "your" tribe becomes one of the "other" tribes.

Lots of this attitude in society still, guess we'll never learn.

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Mainly, Euclid didn't want Ambler to put a factory in their bedroom community, so they used (abused) their governmental powers to prevent it. Ironically (or perhaps inevitably) the federal government forced them to accept a General Motors aircraft factory in their town to support the war effort during WWII. There is a historical marker commemorating the Euclid v Ambler decision at the site of the factory.

Xenophobic is not really the correct term here. Political and social efforts to extract or maintain wealth for the incumbency is part of human society forever, e.g. the rollback of the Great Councils reforms in Venice and the fall of the republic Rome.

I think Xenophobic is exactly the right term. Many suburban zoning rules were designed to keep blacks and hispanics from being welcome - forcing them to stay in the city centers.

Of course, "xeno" implies that they are somehow alien to the area, which is particularly galling considering many black people were brought to the country against their will, and much of the country populated by hispanic people used to be part of Mexico...

Though I'm sure the people who passed the rules thought of such people as outsiders so I can see xenophobic being correct.

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