> At some point you gotta draw some lines, and ownership (combined with reasonable zoning rules) is a pretty good line.

Well, that's what we used to have, to make it all work. You used to trust that if you bought in a neighborhood zoned "R-1", it would mostly stay "R-1" for at least a little while. (same for "PUD-3", and so on)

But "urbanists" started de-regulating all the reasonable zoning rules that made that system work, so now no one can trust that the rules would be enforced anymore, which is how you get random citizens reflexively fighting things (and the prevalence of HOAs, as an extra block against it, and so on)