Having acres of fertile square feet to yourself is indeed a nice lifestyle.
The definition of McMansion I’m familiar with, at least in Los Angeles, is demolishing a 2bd/2ba bungalow to build a 5bd/4ba house, usually by getting rid of all fertile backyard/frontyard in the first place. They have another pejorative name, too— “Boxy Moderns”
This is super common in Santa Monica or Beverly Hills, for example. Even San Francisco!
And yet, for some reason, this is completely fine to build without any zoning meetings but the second you propose a 5-unit 1bd/1ba apartment building with the same profile in a “single family neighborhood” it’s ruining the entire “character” of the place and requires 3-5 years of bureaucracy and, depending on the neighbors, litigation.
You can have a house with a family with kids or you can have a box with a half dozen losers in it, and statistically one of them is a felon. Sane people choose the former.
In these neighborhoods a 1bd condo would still sell for above $800k, minimum. More than likely $1.2-1.5m, looking at Zillow. They’d rent for at least $7k/mo.
If we’re generalizing, like you are, then they’d allow the well-off professional class to live and work in their neighborhood and send their kids to the same schools as the investor-class and trust fund kids-turned-homeowners who haven’t done anything in decades other than be born to the right family.
Unless you’re talking about white-collar convicted felons? Which I can guarantee you, once again, they already live in these neighborhoods and aren’t the ones trying to move into it.
If that sounds like hyperbole, then sure— but so is yours.
Grew up in the burbs of southern California so I had 22 years of experience with the traffic there. Turned me into an urban or rural dweller. Nothing in between. It's just not worth it.