"Before zoning, cities mostly regulated what could be built through nuisance laws. If someone didn't like how their neighbor was using their property, they could haul them to trial and let a judge decide what to do about it."
That's not zoning by any modern definition. It was piecemeal lawsuits with varying levels of effectiveness. There was no comprehensive "you can build this thing here, but not here" plan in place. If you read further into the article you'll see that in Manhattan it was the inability to control what was being built that directly led to the adoption of an actual zoning plan.
So there was a (long) period in American cities in which people were generally building whatever they wanted wherever they liked. This is further outlined in a book I really like "Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism" which talks about how zoning codes and covenants conspired together to produce the modern American suburb.
I have similar frustration at the miscommunication. You're making a very subtle distinction that was not conveyed by your original overbroad claim "zoning is a recent American thing", and which you should have clarified the first time around rather than only after someone pointed out clear counterexamples to the literal meaning of your claim.
Zoning in modern parlance is understood to mean "stuff in this zone can't be built or operated like this". That is the only "zoning" concept relevant to the discussion, and it is universal in the developed world, and has been for ages.
It is functionally zoning in that same parlance, regardless if it's an explicit code, or simply a common-law-like system of precedents of "well, everyone knows the planning board or the complaint system will reject your skyscraper or slaughterhouse in the residential zone".
To the extent that you're making an interesting, relevant distinction, it now seems to be about one particular kind of zoning, that of master plans for future construction that broke sharply from tradition and introduced unusually sharp barriers between residences and commerce. Sure, that's a recent American thing. But it's not at all conveyed by the understanding of "zoning" that existed in the discussion that you attached the remark to.
"Before zoning, cities mostly regulated what could be built through nuisance laws. If someone didn't like how their neighbor was using their property, they could haul them to trial and let a judge decide what to do about it."
That's not zoning by any modern definition. It was piecemeal lawsuits with varying levels of effectiveness. There was no comprehensive "you can build this thing here, but not here" plan in place. If you read further into the article you'll see that in Manhattan it was the inability to control what was being built that directly led to the adoption of an actual zoning plan.
So there was a (long) period in American cities in which people were generally building whatever they wanted wherever they liked. This is further outlined in a book I really like "Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism" which talks about how zoning codes and covenants conspired together to produce the modern American suburb.