The fact that you can build 200 condos on the same acre as 1 ranch house does not negate the fact that most people would choose the ranchouse over the condo if presented a choice between the two.

It is numbers game. Its not about what any single wants best, but how many times you can sell people their 2nd choice using the same land.

"most people"? Genuine question – do you have any data to back this up?

While I would much rather have a nice downtown condo in a major city over a ranch house in the sticks. I would rather have the ranch house in the sticks than a condo in the same location as that ranch house.

Some dream of living in a condo in the city, some of a rural ranch house. I don't think anybody dreams of a rural condo.

The ones that like living out in the country but don't want to/can't mow lawns and shovel snow do.

'If this were true, we wouldn't need to protect our water bodies with EPA laws. Obviously people prefer polluted bodies of water, and it's the artificial EPA laws that prevent it.'

What this analogy says is that people don't want other people living at high density near them. This is expected, since those other people are going to be poor and often dark skinned. Needless to say "other people are pollution, yuck" is not a good argument for zoning.

I think the argument would be much stronger if it just stopped at poor. While Im sure that type of racist exists, I have never met someone who would object to a rich dark doctor moving in next door. To the extent I encounter racism, it almost always follows the logic that dark = poor = crime & dysfunction

Nah bro. You didn't call me a racist for this? WTF?