[moptar]

A lot of disagreement on this but it's basically true. Homeowners want to protect their investment and their comfortable lifestyle so they make sure local government restricts others from diluting what they have. If more houses could be built on the same sized sections, then poorer people would move in because they'd be cheaper. Poor people tend to be more of a disturbance to their neighbors so that would make the incumbents lose what they paid for when they bought their high priced properties in peaceful suburbia. Same goes for hotels which attract transient people that the existing property owners want to keep away.

This happens on many scales. We don't want poor strangers living in our bedroom, on our lawn, in our suburb or in our country. So we have trespass laws, zoning and immigration restrictions to protect us from them.