system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
It's simply self interest. I'll paint the picture: It's easy to think about the spoiled rich guy. But imagine you and your SO are lower-middle class, and have been saving for a house for a decade, foregoing vacations and other things to do so. You finally buy it, after putting down tens of thousands and move in. Your happy and going about your life just getting by due to the high mortgage, but look dorward to refinancing in the future and lowering that expensive mortgage (and get rid of the PMI). A few months later a developer comes in to build section 8 housing, which is great but it will reduce home values in the immediate area. Now that same house is now worth much less, but that mortgage remains the same. With section 8 housing, unfortunately along comes an increase in crime, increases in drug use, and a dozen other things that get impacted. These are the bulk of your NIMBYs

One would think (especially if we're talking CA where I grew up), maybe we could take some of that train money (or from a dozen other things), and use it to purchase that poor couples home (imminent domain type thing) and get rid of NIMBYs. Definitely not an easy issue to solve - seems like there are always casualties no matter what you do
gpt
Very well described and opened my eyes. Thank you. It seems that in the case you laid out, the solution would be to rely on a more stable/guaranteed retirement investment. Obviously difficult in the real world.
This also leads me to wonder why housing is so expensive in the first place. My gut tells me it's due to the speculation of increased value over time. I know Japan has housing supply issues, but they view houses as a consumable, only used for one generation or so. In that case there must be something in bf else causing the shortage. Land availability? Hmm. Lots to think about and read up on.