You're violently agreeing. The point is, you take a large lot, you could build a condo building on it with five units, or you could build a large SFU. The OP's argument is five middle class people could outbid the rich guy. Except that the condo is illegal, the area is zoned for single family.

Another issue here is the wealth disparity. I think your typical millionaire could easily outbid five middle class families or even ten middle class families.

> Another issue here is the wealth disparity. I think your typical millionaire could easily outbid five middle class families or even ten middle class families.

They often could, but would they choose to? Less trivially.

Assuming they did not have to abide by height restrictions, why wouldn't they?

We're saying the same thing. I've found that it's harder to convince people when I talk about buildings and economics, so I talk about the families our laws prevent from living in our neighborhoods.

Great write up on the subject Jake. Sadly, I think your hypothesis that emotional arguments will always drown out rational ones is correct.

Too many of the self-described progressives in places like Seattle and San Francisco are too entrenched to admit that market forces (or more accurately, the resistance of them) is the real problem.