It’s reasonable because that how land ownership works. It appears that perhaps you are not in favor of the principals that come along with land ownership, like zoning. Put yourself in the position of a landowner. You buy a house (the largest investment you’ll ever make) in an area zoned for single family homes. Then along comes a tech boom/bubble and your home goes way up in value. Awesome, you made a great investment. But now the city has become overpopulated and someone wants wants to build a 60 story apartment building a block away from your house in the area zoned for single family homes because people feel entitled to live in San Francisco and change the zoning laws to allow them to build more housing. Well, tough day for you, parking is a nightmare now, traffic is a mess, oh and by the way the value of your most valuable asset, your home, was just halved.

In reality if they do start building up the city extensively, the bubble will have burst by the time the housing capacity is much higher and people won’t want to live there at that time anyway, they’ll move somewhere cheaper - just my two cents.

Zoning has its uses, but the core of your argument seem to rest on a belief that cities should not rezone because it violates some agreement. I am not aware of any such agreement in law or moral codes, although I do appreciate the sentimental attachment to what was when things inevitably change.

Quite to the contrary rezoning is a normal way for cities to respond to changes in needs. You do however have a right to decide over your own land and to negotiate with other interests on changes to zoning rules, and I wholeheartedly support that.

Considering that land value has generally risen with density in western society and the economic drivers denser cities have become, I do not think your argument that higher density reduces monetary land value holds up to scrutiny.

What this article is describing is the opposite of how land ownership works.

A Berkley land owner decided they wanted to build something on their land that would satisfy the zoning requirements. Their neighbors didn't like it, so they lobbied the city government to ignore the zoning requirements and not let them build it.

>parking is a nightmare now, traffic is a mess

Good. Your sense of entitlement to drive and park everywhere all the time does not and should not outrank other people's need to live where there are jobs (or, for that matter, the long-term viability of the planet).

>by the way the value of your most valuable asset, your home, was just halved.

I couldn't think of a brighter public policy success story than redistributing the unearned income of the landed aristocracy to people who are trying to make a living. If we build enough for the newcomers, at worst you're going to see returns at parity with inflation. Am I supposed to be sympathetic that you were thwarted from profiteering on a shortage?

It sounds like you're against the idea of land ownership, so there's no logic that could change your thinking. Also, it's laughable that you think that 64% of the country can be considered "aristocracy."

Uh, what? The idea of land ownership is that you have an exclusive right to use your own land.

You seem to have confused land ownership with its complement, ie. the right to dictate the uses of neighboring land but not your own. I don’t see any inverse deeds listed on the MLS. The closest thing I can think of would be voting shares in a corporation that come with permission to live on its land. But I’m guessing you’re not in favor of permitting more coops/TICs.

That many suburbs function this way is an emergent property of the political process, which can and should be unmade through the same process.

Owning a home in a coastal city or other job center is a question of bloodline and being in the right place at the right time; it’s not realistically available for any amount of wage labor, which is why I call it aristocracy. People whose home value corresponds to their earned income (most homeowners) aren’t in that category.

I think the parent incirrectly plays into an antagonistic story between renters and landowners, which is not present in a healthy market with balanced housing supply. However, I do not see how the parent argues against land ownership. The parent quite the contrary argues for more rezoning to meet demand, which to the contrary is very pro land owner since you therefore can extract more value out of your land by building more housing units on it.

If so few people want to live in a city that there’s no contention for housing or presssure to increase density, then it isn’t healthy. Even without newcomers, a healthy city would be reproducing at least slightly above replacement, so it would still need to grow.

Granted, most American cities are this way. That’s because they are shriveled ruins of their former selves thanks to White Flight and deindustrializaton.

We disagree that prices need to temporarily go up to give developers an incentive to build to meet demand. Landlords will buy real estate from these developers and the normal return should be 3-8% on that investment.

There should be a lower return for less efficient land use, buildings that are badly maintained or outdated housing stock.