Thats the issue with your approach. Supply and demand will cause housing in an area to be knocked down and replaced with denser housing. Townhouses, apartments, skyscrapers eventually.

In some places this natural replacement cycle is feircly resisted and local governments are bent to the will of incumbents.

HN leans heavily liberal but this is one place where conservative "small government" lack of regulations works better. In liberal areas local residents will co-opt the systems for making local regulations to protect their own investments. In conservative areas it's more difficult to NIMBY your way to halt development.