I largely agree, even though I don't like the decisions overall here (in my own opinion, the Peninsula could benefit from more high-density areas of housing, especially near Caltrain and BART stations). I think it's actually not even that far from what the market would produce without zoning, at least under some circumstances. If you abolished zoning today, then lots of things would change, but if the area had been initially developed without zoning, private-sector zoning workalikes would likely have taken its place.
If you look at Houston, the largest city with no zoning laws, the private sector has effectively re-implemented zoning via contract law in huge sections of the city, in the form of subdivisions where the initial developer set up a homeowner's association, empowered via deed restrictions, that implement similar rules about not only density, but even things like what color you can paint your windows. People clearly seem to like living in that kind of community-managed neighborhood. At least doing it via the actual government, rather than these weird quasi-governments, is more transparent and democratic.
If you look at Houston, the largest city with no zoning laws, the private sector has effectively re-implemented zoning via contract law in huge sections of the city, in the form of subdivisions where the initial developer set up a homeowner's association, empowered via deed restrictions, that implement similar rules about not only density, but even things like what color you can paint your windows. People clearly seem to like living in that kind of community-managed neighborhood. At least doing it via the actual government, rather than these weird quasi-governments, is more transparent and democratic.