I hear this argument a lot, but I’m not sure I buy the financial angle. If MV became Tokyo, the land alone in which a single-family home sits would be worth vastly more than it is today.
I legitimately think that they want to continue to live in a detached house with a yard, in a low-density neighborhood, like they have for a long time (or recently bought into).
The ones who have been there for decades don’t feel the increased prices (thanks to prop 13) and the ones who recently moved in are clearly wealthy enough.
Is it that hard to believe that people just don’t want their neighborhoods to change?
I think once we acknowledge that, we can work to preserve that neighborhood feel without dismissing that desire as being a disguised financial interest.
> But one way to nearly know for sure would be to observe the turnover of housing supply in that area.
Could you describe what you mean? What direction of effect would you expect?
But building skyscrapers would mean more units could be sold, thereby greatly increasing the value of land - as long as demand is there in the lower price ranges.
Why is this necessary? What requirement is satisfied only by increased density?
I could equally say Google needs to stop growing and start moving projects elsewhere.
and how are they going to do that without allowing the city to be denser?