Historically, zoning laws were established to prevent cheaper forms of housing from being built in order to keep poor people out from a region. The existence of these laws is precisely because the lawmakers recognized that more dense forms of housing would be built and lived in by poorer residents unless it was made illegal.
It's hard to describe how little I care about why something was originally created, rather than how it plays out today.
It's also hard to describe how discouraging it is that social progressiveness is the only factor of any issue I see anyone have any knowledge on.
You may need a permit to build, but it’s not nearly as impossible as Reddit would have you think.
What are my odds of hitting at least 10 places where I'd get a permit?
A. There is no more debate about it
B. Suppliers are motivated to catch up to where the supply chain needs to be at.
There is no other explanation for what exclusive zoning is. By banning the only form of housing poor people can afford you are attempting to "keep the poor from existing". Sure, land prices follow supply and demand so land in expensive places is expensive. But it turns out that we can build many housing units on not much land and amortize the land cost so that even the poor can afford expensive areas, if only it were legal.
One to get you started: even the poor have a right to a home that isn’t infested with the fumes of manufacturing. You don’t need to be rich to see the benefit of not allowing slaughterhouses in the middle of section 8 housing, surely?
And no. I do not believe it is moral to ban certain types of housing, other than unsafe. If you want to build safe housing on your land and your neighbors stop you they are saying poor people are not allowed to exist in their neighborhood.
A college town is, really, only desirable to college students and the businesses that cater to them. Thus, the demand is very low, and almost nobody stays particularly long. The exceptions to this are colleges in or near very large towns, but even housing near the college tends to be much cheaper than housing in the city.
If McD's was a self-contained economy, it too would be surrounded by cheap housing.
I wish we could have conversations about things like this which are based in reality and not some fear of a macguffin enemy trying to "keep the poor from existing".