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People do want to live in them. It is the people who control what gets built that don't. Consider a neighborhood with a great school. You don't think families would jump at the chance to live in a new apartment in that town? The town planners, however, will fear apartments will bring in people that might lower the quality of the school, bring town test scores, etc. The only apartments allowed will be retirement communities.

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This exactly. Where I live (suburbs large city SE US) the school district created redlined school clusters to group the dispersed apartments towards one HS/MS/ES cluster and high priced single family housing to another. The result? What you expect - the disparity between the 2 HS is shocking. The apartment schools are older, in disrepair, have higher crime/drug rates, etc. The SF HS has a big new stadium, fancy street front LED signage, and lots of tech. Single moms and low income families are just where you expect - many cannot participate in the discussion due to work, inability to understand what is being discussed, and the other foibles of lower class life in America.

You're sort of missing how the school got to be a great school. Low-density neighborhoods, high relative property taxes, parents with time for PTA involvement... without fail, the "good" schools in America tend to be the ones in neighborhoods without apartments.

You can't change up the population density, the property tax each family pays, and expect nothing to change about the school. Once I buy a house, I don't want that school to change... so yes, people do whatever they can to keep the population density of their school district from changing. Can't really blame them, can we?

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