Earlier quoted context omitted.
This only works if you slice and dice the polity. Who says zoning in the Bay Area should be decided by current residents? The super commuter service workers from Modesto should certainly have a say. So should the families displaced to Phoenix or Las Vegas. In addition, it is not a fair characterization to describe apartment buildings as "a shot in the nuts."
Why should Modesto have a say in what gets built in San Francisco? I’m pretty sure the folks in Modesto would be pretty pissed if San Francisco was dictating building rules to them! And Phoenix or Las Vegas aren’t even in the same states or legal jurisdictions. If you told them San Francisco was going to be able to tell them what to build or how, you’d just get laughed at. If you think building a high density apartme…
Additionally, Nevada and Arizona share a jurisdiction with California: the United States of America. The state is already taking land use out of city hands through SB35 et al., and this will only become more acute as each city loses credibility as a good faith actor. The federal government also dictates what can be built through mortgage policy. The subdivision itself was a policy invention to make it easy to guarantee federal mortgages.
2. Most residents do not give a crap about apartment buildings. Surveys prove this over and over. SB50, an upzoning bill, polled quite well with the general population. The ones who do will quickly get over themselves when it becomes clear that apartments aren’t a “shot to the nuts.” Honestly, this sentiment is extremely weird and endemic to America; most countries with great standards of living manage to live in varied urban topologies just fine.