Single family zoning was invented with the Chinese in mind. But much of American zoning post-WW2 is a reaction to the Great Migration and concomitant phenomena like redlining, which created new neighborhood and municipal borders that were defended in part by shrink-wrapping inhospitable zoning codes around existing residents.

A good starting point for reading about this is "Harland Bartholomew". He's the architect of what turned out to be St. Louis's ring suburb design, but he also traveled the country building these de facto redlining codes all across the continent.

It's not a red herring.

> A good starting point for reading about this is "Harland Bartholomew". He's the architect of what turned out to be St. Louis's ring suburb design

Bartholomew was born 13 years after the Great Divorce between St. Louis City and County was approved by voters, establishing the city's modern borders, and ultimately dictating the "ring suburb design" that we see today.

>Single family zoning was invented with the Chinese in mind.

And who was the "no mobile homes" addendum written for?

You're using "racist = bad" as an excuse to avoid evaluating the premise of the law, which itself is bad too. It doesn't matter that the law is racist. There are tons and tons of areas in the zoning code that are just as bad because they inherent from the same premise of micromanagement, not being racially motivated doesn't make them good. The whole race thing is a red herring.