[natrius]

> They have this idea that there are a bunch of wealthy and greedy developers out to get them and their precious neighborhoods.

This narrative is so persistent because it's 100 years old. But for most of that time, developers were called greedy because they made money by introducing cheaper housing into the neighborhood, thereby "ruining" it.

Here's a Supreme Court Justice shitting on apartments in 1926:

> With particular reference to apartment houses, it is pointed out that the development of detached house sections is greatly retarded by the coming of apartment houses, which has sometimes resulted in destroying the entire section for private house purposes; that, in such sections, very often the apartment house is a mere parasite, constructed in order to take advantage of the open spaces and attractive surroundings created by the residential character of the district.

That's from Euclid v. Ambler, the case that established the constitutionality of zoning. Our cities are expensive on purpose.