Now there may have been historical problems with letting developers do whatever they want, including criminal disregard for human life and exacerbating the problems us yimbys want to solve. But since I already talked about them in this article we can pretend I actually addressed these concerns.
The problem is that the only democratic tool that gives people real power anymore is to go to council meeting and make a huge nuisance of yourself as a way to prevent any change. But elite libs only see it through the narrow lens of "we gave them a voice, and the used to to shout down things we like", instead of enabling the community decision-making that would give people the power and buy-in to actually start making changes for the better.
That's because zoning board meetings are only meant to rubber stamp what developers want to do: make money. Any zoning board that goes against the moneyed interests will find themselves co-opted in the next election
