"GP got his reward for that investment in the form of increased value of his own property. That’s all he’s entitled to."

Says you. I don't see that. Although I live in a working-class area in a lesser city, I've worked to make my community better, and my interests don't stop at money.

"People have a right to use their property as they see fit. If that means tearing down a brownstone in your neighborhood and building a high rise so a bunch of people from the Midwest can move in, so be it. The government can limit those rights when necessary, but the affirmative burden is on the party demanding such regulation to show why it is necessary to interfere with peoples’ property rights."

But you are the one arguing for gov't intervention. The locals want things to stay the same. Its local landowners who don't want change. I don't understand this part of your argument.

> Says you. I don't see that.

No, the law says that. The law lets you capture the increased value of your property. That’s the nature of a property right. Property rights don’t give you the right to dictate how other people use their property. Even zoning laws were intended to protect neighborhood health and safety, not the locals’ interests in preventing change.

> But you are the one arguing for gov't intervention. The locals want things to stay the same. Its local landowners who don't want change. I don't understand this part of your argument.

Owning property gives you complete dominion over that property, by default. If I own a brownstone, and want to tear it down and build a high rise, I can do that. That’s the nature of property rights. What prevents me from doing that is zoning boards, historical conservency laws, etc. Thats government intervention.

Some of the local landowners do want to change. They want to tear down some buildings and build new taller ones. Local zoning laws are what prevents them from doing so.

But those laws are the current state of affairs. They were when the properties were purchased; they are now. Gov't intervention is required for change.

Getting rid of government intervention (zoning laws, etc.) is not government intervention.

No, it's the locals who are intervening in government with their overly restrictive zoning laws. We want to undo that intervention an diet the market set the prices.