When I started a housing advocacy group in Washington, D.C.’s educated, affluent, politically progressive northern Virginia suburbs, I hoped residents would be able to have a respectful civic dialogue about loosening zoning laws that make housing expensive. But by the time one of them challenged my city’s mayor to a fistfight, I knew that housing reform opponents had no interest in compromise. I witnessed many attempts by reform opponents to intimidate elected officials, as Arlington County and Alexandria opened up single-family neighborhoods to new duplexes and other denser housing.

During a public meeting in Arlington, I watched a crowd of zoning reform opponents shout down a county board member while she was pleading for civility. Five days later, an anonymous anti-reformer posted a picture of another Arlington County Board member’s house online.