Who is ”they”?

The origin of local power to stymie development is from the post WW2 years when freeways were mandated, but local communities they bisected were inevitably the politically weak ones.

Now, the NIMBYs include those same VCs [1] that publicly posted that America should build at scale again… just not in their town.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/marc-andre...

Municipal government exists at the pleasure of the state, and the State governments can just take back land use powers at any time. "They" here is the state Dem party, and they have an easy choice to make.

What are the anti growth policies of the Democratic party?

I don’t know about the party part (many of these date back when Republicans ruled the state), but

  - development zoning (restrict development to low density residential),
  - slowing development with required surveys (eg. CEQA)
  - permit friction
  - rejection of mass transport in growing population regions
  - mobs at city planning meetings,
  - Open Space preserves (private contracts to maintain nature in area where high demand