I purposely bought my house in a federal and state historic neighborhood so that I wouldn't have to wake up one morning and discover I was back in a dense neighborhood. I lived in downtown urban environments from age of 18 to 52. That was enough. There are plenty of high density housing options being built all over my city downtown including office building conversions. I'm all for it. That's just not how I want to live and I should have that choice.
And then the current residents leave before their investments (their homes) lose value and the neighborhood as a whole loses value (or turns into a slum).
Once again, you use the passive. Change is active. Someone is doing the changing, and then they are trying to insult the people that refuse to let them have their way.
I explained two kinds of change, one that is more visible, where housing is built to accommodate people moving in, and a second kind where supply does not meet demand so the people change.
Boulder, CO is an example of #2 - they put a bunch of restrictions on growth years ago , so what 'change' looked like there is wealthy people moving in, and the working class being pushed out to 'leapfrog development' like Longmont, where they then commute in the serve the landed gentry.
You can easily see the first kind, but you have to look at statistics to see the second - income averages, price of housing, vacancy rates, what kinds of jobs your kids' friends' parents have and so on.
There are different things that could create demand to live somewhere - jobs, and amenities are common ones though.
Oh, you want to buy a car? Too bad -- it's my right to preserve my driving experience, therefore, no car for you.