Yes, but the conflict comes from what "here" means. If you draw the boundary around a neighbourhood, sure - it's democratic. But it's just as rational to consid

Yes, but the conflict comes from what "here" means. If you draw the boundary around a neighbourhood, sure - it's democratic. But it's just as rational to consider L.A. itself and suddenly it's undemocratic because decisions aren't being made by the "demos" but by a small subset of them - with implications for the whole city. Similarly one could expand the boundary to the entire state. On the other extreme the residents of a single block could decide it's in their interest to build a skyscraper on their one block. Democracy, right? The residents of an area (that block) are doing what's in their own interest.