Yes, because I think it's absurd to claim that someone building a small apartment building on property they own down the street is changing my life. In fact, in

Yes, because I think it's absurd to claim that someone building a small apartment building on property they own down the street is changing my life. In fact, in your last claim, the property owner who is exercising control over their neighbor's building is the one unfairly "changing lives." In addition, developing on my own property has little to do with relative power imbalances. Who really holds power when I have to bribe my neighbors to get a variance to build an ADU in my backyard? > those hypothetical future residents have the entire rest of the country to choose from This is kind of a silly claim because it suggests that the country is an undifferentiated landmass and there are no relative benefits of a particular geographic location. There are clearly relative advantages to living in a place, so telling people they can choose anyplace else is not really a choice! > I don't know why the current residents shouldn't be able to expect to make the rules they want. This is only barely a coherent argument at the international levels ("Middle Eastern refugees shouldn't be able to decide where to settle in Europe!"). When you live within a country with freedom of movement, this is a very difficult argument to make. Should I only be allowed to vote in places where I am a property owner? For what it's worth, there are plenty of developing legal arguments _against_ local zoning, and California is on track to solve its housing issues by having the state take control of zoning away from cities.