And then what happens when the reason to live there is now gone?

You seem to frame it as an exclusivity problem - they're trying to exclude people from affordable housing...

while the people who live there look at it as preserving what makes it livable

neither are right or wrong on their own, but surely build at all cost isn't a solution to mountain town charm

It will reach an equilibrium

>while the people who live there look at it as preserving what makes it livable

And they're free to buy up all the land and choose what they want to do with it

Or, as a democratic form of government allows, they petition for laws that protect their interests from their representatives.

Single family homes is exclusive. You’re choosing to build a mega mansion on a big plot of land vs letting 100 people enjoy that land. The latter will be more affordable.

There is way more than enough land for everyone to live the lifestyle they want. This isn't about land, this is about people with money and an obsession with density falling in love with the decades of hard work that locals put into making a place a home, and then destroying what they fell in love with.

>There is way more than enough land for everyone to live the lifestyle they want.

This is objectively not true in urban areas like San Francisco or New York City