The single largest capital requirement for most new small businesses is real estate, and is real estate because mixed use zoning is prohibited in the vast majority of areas in the US, requiring the proprietor to separately pay for somewhere to put the business and somewhere to live. Zoning is a local regulation and there are very many localities completely controlled by Democrats, so why does this continue to be the case?

The notion that "many localities completely controlled by Democrats" is just not really true. The idea that zoning reform is a no-brainer and easy is also clearly not true: it's been a major teeth pull in SF and California, and many different people are pushing back.

Additionally somewhere like SF isn't a monolith, and despite voting heavily for federal democrats, the local elections aren't so clear cut.

Also we need to consider how and if development is truly good for existing residents. Many of them do not think so. The appropriate response here is to develop a sense of curiosity: why is that? What do people believe, and why?

I would say this: modern development doesn't always make the kinds of mixed used neighborhoods that people truly want and love. The cost of development often results in street level vacant commercial space, and that is not good for neighborhoods. Yes a complete revamp of zoning could change this - but would it? How do you build a compelling future that brings people along?

It just isn't trivial sadly.

> The notion that "many localities completely controlled by Democrats" is just not really true.

There are in actual fact many cities where Democrats control every branch of local government.

> The idea that zoning reform is a no-brainer and easy is also clearly not true: it's been a major teeth pull in SF and California, and many different people are pushing back.

That's the point. Democrats, despite having majority control in such areas, don't actually do it.

> Also we need to consider how and if development is truly good for existing residents. Many of them do not think so. The appropriate response here is to develop a sense of curiosity: why is that? What do people believe, and why?

If you're an incumbent property owner then you want the value of your existing property to go up. If you want to move into an area you don't already live or build something there, you want property to be affordable. Since only the first group gets a vote in local elections, there is a perverse incentive to maintain artificial scarcity.

> How do you build a compelling future that brings people along?

It's a structural failure that comes from doing zoning at the local level. Alice owns a house in San Francisco and intends sell it and buy one in LA. Bob owns a house in LA and intends to sell it and buy one in San Francisco. Therefore Alice currently wants housing to be expensive in San Francisco and cheap in LA and Bob wants the opposite. But Alice only gets a vote in San Francisco and Bob only gets a vote in LA, so they each vote for housing to be expensive there and then it ends up expensive everywhere. As soon as Bob buys the house in San Francisco and consequently a vote there, he wants that house to cost more rather than less.

If you prohibit scarcity-inducing zoning practices at the state or federal level then Alice and Bob no longer have a strong preference since the rule now affects them both when they sell and when they buy instead of only one of those, but all of the people who don't already own property can now vote in an election for someone that has jurisdiction.