It’s the other way around. Zoning changed dramatically and local governments began to aggressively intervene in the residential housing market.
Before 1900, the governments more or less stayed out of the details of residential housing. There were restrictions on what could be done with a piece of land, but the government generally did not get too involved in whether a single family vs multi-family apartment could be built on a specific parcel.
The 1926 SCOTUS case, Euclid vs. Ambler, changed all this. The SCOTUS ruled it was legal for cities to ban certain types of homes, such as cheaper, denser, apartments. By creating an artificial shortage of homes or by directly forbidding types of homes, the wrong type of poor minorities could be kept out of neighborhoods without officially banning them. Back then this was mainly blacks, but nowadays it’s broadened to include any type of poor minority in disfavor, such as college students.
College students are an excellent apolitical example - these are people who are guaranteed transient, hate the population who actually live there ("townies" amirite?) and on top, they're loud, party a lot, and do other forms of criminal activity.
Houses form a large portion of someone's net worth, moving costs a lot of money and besides, the person you want to force to move may be unable to move.
Why would they vote to let you build university housing next door to them?
Every single aspect of that dorm negatively impacts their quality of life, and further reduces their ability to afford to live anywhere else.
You can say this is "shortsighted" because of urbanist sympathies, but the reality is that voters are basically perpetually punished for allowing any kind of building. Over time, cabals of "absolutely not" form.
Before 1900, the governments more or less stayed out of the details of residential housing. There were restrictions on what could be done with a piece of land, but the government generally did not get too involved in whether a single family vs multi-family apartment could be built on a specific parcel.
The 1926 SCOTUS case, Euclid vs. Ambler, changed all this. The SCOTUS ruled it was legal for cities to ban certain types of homes, such as cheaper, denser, apartments. By creating an artificial shortage of homes or by directly forbidding types of homes, the wrong type of poor minorities could be kept out of neighborhoods without officially banning them. Back then this was mainly blacks, but nowadays it’s broadened to include any type of poor minority in disfavor, such as college students.