ANDERSON COUNTY — I guess I should be upset about the failure of Anderson County's latest attempt at zoning.

After all, I've always been disturbed by our environmentally and financially wasteful, Southern way of development.

Massive home homes on acres upon acres far away from shops, workplaces and leisure venues. All of those miles of roads to support just a few thousand families here and there. All those miles of sewer pipe. All those miles of waterlines. You get the idea.

It wasn't but three months ago that I applauded a renewed desire on behalf of the Anderson County Planning Commission and the Anderson County Council to deal more wisely with growth and development.

My fear then was that we'd go for dramatic steps, such as zoning, instead of pursuing more modest, incremental changes that could win public support and confidence.

So much for being this community's prophetic voice...

What caught me by surprise in the crash and burn of County Council member Ron Wilson's District 6 zoning push was rediscovering my discomfort with the attitudes that drive support for zoning.

I can question the practicality of Southerners' demands that they have inalienable property rights. But at least there's a noble philosophical principle involved: That a government shouldn't be able to take what's yours or reduce its value without compensation.

What bothers me is the rank class prejudice that is justified by (z)owning the suburban dream.

During the salad days of Anderson County's romance with zoning in 1999, 2000 and 2001, residents scrambled to implement zoning for one reason only: The ability to create legal and financial barriers to unwelcome families.

The biggest sin, of course, was living in a manufactured home. But no one was really safe: In one celebrated zoning battle on Old Williamston Road, I remember residents of $400,000 homes arguing that $150,000 homes would "ruin" their neighborhoods.

So we saw automatic outcries over half- and quarter-acre home site proposals, no matter the value of the homes to be constructed or that Baby Boom "empty nesters'' were stoking demand for smaller homes and yards.

We also saw a push for planned developments that placed conditions on aesthetics and construction materials and other things so the project could be made safely uneconomic when needed.

One time, I almost felt like applauding the honesty of one zoning supporter who stated that she didn't want the risk that Mexicans would wind up living near her neighborhood. Period.

So, as strange as this may sound, I'm glad that zoning failed.

We're taught to "love your neighbor." All neighbors. Not just the ones with nice houses that won't lower your property value. Not just when you're not wealthy enough to get away from them.

Aren't we all morally implicated when government power upholds, disguises and dignifies the fallen desire to separate ourselves from people that we think we're "better" than?