Same thing with building codes. Make them more onerous to increase construction costs. Then lol all the way to the bank when you grandfather your own house in, increasing your own property value as it is now impossible to build a house as economically as your own. Sprinkle in some "think of the safety of the children" for good measure, no matter the fact your own house is justified as safe enough to stand.

San Francisco is 2/3rds renters, all of whom can vote. You shouldn't pretend that they have no say in how their city is run.

If they want more rentals and more density, they have the power to vote for people who can make it happen. Instead they vote for people who talk a lot about preserving the character of San Francisco.

Everyone can vote? American Samoans, green card holders, various non-citizen immigrants? I thought SF was unusually immigrant rich.

There are a ton of people in SF who are paying sizeable taxes and rents with no vote in these matters. It's quite likely they are disproportionately renters.

This renters mostly live in rent-controlled apartments, so they don't have the same interests as people who might want to move there.

To be clear, my comment was more a reaction to what I perceived as the idea that any zoning of residential areas by the community that lives there is unacceptable and that you should be able to do literally anything that's not actively endangering your neighbors. That would result in most neighborhoods being much less pleasant due to a few owners deciding to do things against the interests of the many.

I think the "community" can also extend to something as large as California. If California as a community decides it's in the best interest of that community to loosen some zoning restrictions in particularly high demand areas, fine. Do it with thoughtfulness and as much respect for existing owners' interests as possible while still accomplishing the desired objective. That's similar to a smaller community deciding to change the rules to account for some new undesirable behavior of certain community members.

In-group/out-group aren't great terms to use to make that point.

I and many others who don't live in the Bay Area see ourselves as an in-group relative our out-group -- the people who have to live there.