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Why would there be competition between solar/wind and housing for land? For what reason would you need (or even desire) to locate solar farms and wind turbines on the edge of large cities?

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Wind farms are built on top of land that could be used to build more housing. There's a huge wind farm in the the Bay Area (Altamont Pass) that is used for wind farms that could have been used to build a ton of more houses.

There is plenty of land nowhere near cities if that is your concern. If housing could even be built there at all given the terrain.

There are very few on most similar terrain in the Bay Area and there are no wind farms blocking development there. Why haven't houses been built?

This is not quite true. The biggest American wind farm (Altamont Pass) is right next to Silicon Valley in the Bay Area. The 2-9 ones are between 20-50 miles from cities. You mention these "rural" areas as if nothing would be built there. These areas are typically developed over 10-50 years, just like the Bay Area when that wind farm was built.

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