I would point out that article showing that the poor live longer in places like SF and NY. For others, access to a more productive, dynamic place to work carries a lot of benefits, and excluding them definitely hurts.
Do you mean this one:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/11/where...
Where the map shows that areas up and down the California Coast (not just SF) show longer life for the poor?
However, I'm not sure that longer life correlates strongly with "quality of life" (as someone who watched a loved one undergo long slow decline and live about a year longer than he wanted to).
A homeless person that barely manages to eke out a living on the streets of SF may not be happier than a homeless person in Detroit that largely lives in shelters in Detroit, even if the SF homeless person lives longer.
The argument that many residents have against urbanization of SF by removing building height limits is that an urbanized SF is no longer "SF". Skyscrapers built on pilings down to bedrock are almost certainly more safer in an earthquake than most of the old low rise housing in SF, so earthquake safety is not the reason SF isn't full of high rises.