>renting and can easily flee to a different city if they vote poorly.

Nitpick:

I think you're correct that the problem is people who do selfish shortsighted things and leave others holding the bag but I think you are blaming the wrong people.

Pretty much everyone from Marx to MLK to Rand and Sowell identifies somme sort of class of "comfortable enough to meddle in things to further their self interest at everyone else's detriment" demographics as the root of a whole bunch of bad stuff.

In most municipalities middle class who are too tied into the place (often through home ownership) to just get out that provide the bulk of the political will to do short sighted "feels good" stuff that solves some minor problem they have but screws the whole place on a 20-50yr timeline (by which time the individuals responsible will have retired and cashed out to Idaho or Florida or whatever).