> It just seems that all these clever people live in thier own little worlds, without bothering to look at how people around them will be affected.

I'd like to add the possibility that all these clever people did look at how people around them will be affected, and they either consider the personal gain to be worth the pain, or they think "if I don't do it, the other guy will!"

Economically speaking, each of them is behaving rationally. And since economics also tells us that locations refusing them will be left behind, we can't say no, right? And let's not even think about how much money these people are pumping into politics... IMO the obvious conclusion is that our economic system is fundamentally broken, because it affords far too much power to individuals.

As a thought experiment, consider that comparable mountains of money would have been available to massively increase the housing supply while making positive RoI, but it didn't happen because these people wouldn't have made enough money.