Maybe, can we all stop acting like the 6-story, 84' boogeyman is:
1) the most likely outcome for a housing development even if a bunch of parcels were zoned R6 (ex Motiv is 4 stories, zoned R6, as were basically all the parcels in the city that got those 2.5 story shitbox walk-ups in the 60s)
2) that bad of an outcome, even if it did happen (define "bad" - neighboring property values, actual impacts to neighboring health/safety, you name it)
3) incapable of being regulated in different ways to mitigate design issues
4) okay to put next to an apartment building where someone living with only one window gets the shaft but not okay next to that poor fellow who owns a single family home
5) okay to put next to polluted streets and against freeways that wealthier people avoid
6) the maximum developers can build, representing the extreme starting point for zoning negotiation (ie, developers have and could build 15 story towers in residential areas, so 6 stories is already a compromise when talking regulation)
7) even what people are advocating for
As an unimportant aside, I wouldn't lump in Strong Towns with the more market-oriented people, since this (paradoxically orderly but dumb)
suggestion is
what they've pushed.
And, your snark about some libertarian faith is unappreciated. It's *okay* to believe that sometimes markets are good and doing things and sometimes they're not. It's okay to come to a conclusion after reading tons of literature that the places in this country and across the planet that care less about compatibility and character also tend to get more housing units built per capita and also tend to see less housing inflation (but also, other better outcomes like walking and biking and transit feasibility and all the great stuff that comes with them). I think it's also okay to say that even an ugly or out of scale apartment building is still first and foremost a place where people live and that maybe our zeal to SimCity ourselves a perfect planet has swung just a bit too far on the regulatory side.
But this whole thing comes back to asking what amount of shift in our zoning code is too "crazy" to handle and would cause sweeping voter outrage, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and so on. Advocates are already willing to let "what existing neighbors (really, homeowners) are willing to concede" be an underlying premise of the discussion - literally nobody is calling Lisa Bender and asking her to upzone Kenny to R6 tout suite. So what do we (all) want? Is it allowing duplexes/triplexes in existing homes, 3-story (max) townhomes, and maybe small apartment buildings? Or is it something else? How do we get there from a code perspective? Are there places where we know land costs are too high to allow that form so we may need to shift the discussion a little?
It's the housing advocates who are the ones willing to have long, hard, nuanced discussions and find a balance, and that goes same when talking about policies and funding mechanisms for any other non-libertarian style housing programs. Meanwhile, your average Joe Homeowner only cares about traffic, parking, and if a 6-story apartment building next door will shade his azaleas or cost him a few percent on the sale of his home in 20 years.