[catlover76]

"democracy" can mean a range of things, and, in addition, it's not really clear who the relevant group of people are whose collective will we should care about.

For example, why draw the circle around these residents instead of thinking that the CA state legislature, as reps of the people of the state, should be entrusted with making all zoning decisions and such with a bird's eye view of what benefits the whole state? You can make a reasonable case why that's suboptimal, but at that point, we wouldn't be talking of "moral authority"

"Moral authority" doesn't really seem compelling to me, personally, as like a concept for judging government actions, and to the extent it does, I don't share the normative premise that "democracy" is supposedly an intrinsic or unadulterated good such that the most "democratic" proposition should win over others.