There's this idea of a "city as a museum", to normalize the balance of power you describe. In NYC there's a very similar balance of power. On some rarefied str

There's this idea of a "city as a museum", to normalize the balance of power you describe. In NYC there's a very similar balance of power. On some rarefied streets, it's illegal to change the silhouette or facade of a building, because it's an "historic district". But if you go 40 minutes outside of lower manhattan, relatively affordable housing abounds and there are essentially no rules. The "museum" core creeps outwards, but with sloth-like predictability. You're right, these places are not "for you/us". They're for people whose means allow them to make mole hills out of the mountains you describe (access to education, public transit, quality housing), and for the rest of us, who are willing to compromise their ideals and cope with the egregious terms and conditions. Your solutions make sense in a utilitarian sense, but this is not a sense that appeals homeowners who have already rationalized away the irrational aspects of the status quo. Generations of experience have shown that, absent some highly-destructive disaster, it's cheaper to move to place you perceive to align with your ideals, or to change your own ideals, than it is to change the ideals of zoning policy. There is a selfish component to this vector of development, but it's reductionist to say it's the only component. At any given point in time, the selfish component is there; but at many points in time it is not the biggest contributor.