> Cities and their existing residents have a right to protect the quality of life and neighborhood character they want. They are not obligated to accommodate ne

> Cities and their existing residents have a right to protect the quality of life and neighborhood character they want. They are not obligated to accommodate newcomers and population influxes, nor should they be. A right according to who? Since when is infringing on other people's freedoms and property rights by banning them from developing their own private land, in order to satisfy your own aesthetic preferences, at the expense of making millions people homeless, underhoused, or forcing them to move away from their social and economic networks, a fundamental right? From a conservative perspective, private property rights reign supreme and you have no right to tell people what they can build on their land. From a progressive, social-welfare-maximizing viewpoint, other people's need for shelter where they want to live supersedes your aesthetic preferences. Regardless of your ideological underpinnings, your brand of NIMBYism is completely indefensible. > People need to stop being entitled and just move somewhere else where they can make ends meet, if they cannot cut it in a place that is in high-demand. No one is entitled to live wherever they want at whatever price they want. I'm sorry, who is being "entitled" here: 1. The person who wants to build a multifamily building on the land they paid for. 2. The person who wants to live in the same place they grew up, and where all their friends and family currently are, and who is willing to enter into a consensual commercial transaction with (1) to procure said housing. 3. The busybody who wants to dictate what other people can build and where they can live because they don't like seeing a two-story walk-up down the block from where they live? You are so warped by your own sense of entitlement that you don't realize you are the one making unreasonable demands of other people, not the other way around, because you see those unreasonable demands as your god given right. > Why does every attractive and desirable city have to be affordable or accessible? The only reason why many people have no access to these desirable things is because of bad policy, not because these things are intrinsically scarce. If we can fix bad policy to allow more people to have desirable things, that is good for societal welfare. More good things for more people is good, actually.