Neighborhood character and height limits can mean a lot of things and be implemented for different reasons. If done in the NIMBY sense of "you can't have anythi

Neighborhood character and height limits can mean a lot of things and be implemented for different reasons. If done in the NIMBY sense of "you can't have anything I don't like", yes it's horrendous. But there's a reason Paris "feels" different than Dallas, or Brooklyn different than Manhattan. A big reason I enjoy traveling is to experience these difference "neighborhood cultures". Without some restrictions, you risk destroying what makes a city special. I'm not making any sort of value judgment here--it's not up to me alone to decide "character is more important than housing" (or vise versa), and I won't pretend to know where to draw the line on those restrictions. Height restrictions are often put in place because the underlying infrastructure (water and sewage, electrical grids, traffic/roads) and occasionally even the ground itself simply cannot support a high rise every block.