>>508147593 (OP)The developers are invariably some councilman or mayor or governor's asshole cousin, so they get laws passed at a local level that aren't specifically targeted at their competition, but just so happen to not impede them in any way whatsoever.
Also they crunched numbers and found that those cookie cutter suburban nightmares are the most profitable kind of house to build. On top of all that, starting a very restrictive HOA when they begin building so that the early sold homes don't "drag down the value of nearby homes" is also seen as the smart play, then they hand that HOA off to the residents who are the kind of people who wanted to live in that kind of HOA to begin with (or at least the ones most likely to run for HOA offices are). It's a vicious spiral of corruption and nimbyism.