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The fealty to policies that have restricted supply and raise prices challenge the self-image of many deep blue, Democratic cities; how can you be progressive and welcoming to all if low income, people of color, students, and the middle class can’t afford a place to live?

“So many cities are seeing long-standing pro-ownership policies come face to face with growth,” he says. “It’s challenging their progressive cred. If you drive a Prius and recycle, yet don’t allow apartments to be built, and then force people to drive 50 miles each way to work and cause all that pollution, you can’t say ‘out of sight, out of mind.’” ...

Between neighborhood groups and councils that held power over zoning and land-use decisions and the spread of NIMBYism, these older groups have often controlled the dialogue around adding housing supply, all while reaping an oversized amount of the gains from rising land values. As author Mike Davis once wrote, this “Sunset Bolshevism,” the collective political power of homeowners, has proven itself to be California’s strongest social movement.

“The most surprising thing was how widespread these homeowner groups was,” Shaw says. “The most powerful voters are homeowner voters.

Shaw highlighted Venice, the once-Bohemian beach community in Los Angeles, as a prime example. From 1960 to 2010, as the LA metro area added two million housing units, Venice added virtually none. Venice actually lost 700 housing units between 2000 and 2015, and the population decreased. It’s created incredible homeowner value, as well as an acute affordability and homelessness crisis.