The book Left Coast City (https://www.amazon.com/Left-Coast-City-Progressive-Francisco...) describes the characters of the anti-highrise “growth wars” of the 1980s. In short, San Francisco’s 1980s-era progressives believe that the private market is greedy and irrational (since big business redeveloped slums in the 1950s and overbuilt vacant downtown offices in the 1980s) and can’t be trusted to build what people need, and therefore we need community veto power and strong eviction protection. These activists also grew up back when the media taught that urban life was un-environmental (see the chapter on ditching the Lorax in Triumph of the City https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healt...), so they support height limits too. The same anti-development activists of the 1980s (e.g. Tim Redmond, Calvin Welch, Sue Hestor) are still active today to oppose all big development including housing.