Spot on. Not trying to be cliche, but big government is what's causing these problems. If they would allow high rises to be built, we wouldn't be seeing these issues.
I don't see the big government argument here. If the residents of San Francisco are voting to keep the city a certain way, how does that align with traditional "big government" narratives of over-regulation, bloated spending, etc?
You could say the residents of SF are using city regulations a certain way, but that doesn't imply big government to me.
Government dictating what may and may not be done with private property. Not in the spending sense as it is normally used, but definitely in the invasive sense.
I think it's awfully reductionist to blame the "government" and stop there. It simplifies a lot of what is really going on and threatens to become a thought-terminating cliche; "Well, that's big government for you."
This is the democratic reaction of a lot of city residents (many of whom are blue collar) to the new economic realities within their hometown. That leads to many more paths of resolution than just saying "big government".
In other words, government isn't the problem here. The SF housing crisis, the coming class war, the inequities of late-era capitalism -- these are the real problems.
Big government has nothing to do with this. The protesters themselves are the problem. Not because of their current protests, but because of their previous protests against more housing.
The government has tried, many times, to zone and build more dense housing which would have prevented this problem. The people of SF have been organizing and protesting every step of the way against that for the last 15 years.
Hell, even today they are protesting the increase in housing costs while simultaneously protesting against increased housing.
You could say the residents of SF are using city regulations a certain way, but that doesn't imply big government to me.