It is everything to do with supply. Location. Location. Location. People want to live in certain places. If there isn't enough housing there, prices go up. Building lots of housing in small places is not bad for the environment. It is much better for the environment than sprawl.
And what about when you’ve exhausted every square inch of land to shove more housing on? Then the city isn’t worth anything to anyone and you move on to the next city to ruin.
At some point, enough is enough and you have to accept that there’s no room for more housing without ruining the city. You could focus on reclaiming AirBNBs and vacant housing and you might be able to make a dent in the problem.
Just announce that your city is full and tell everyone to move on. Ruining the city will make landlords money and everyone unhappy.
> And what about when you’ve exhausted every square inch of land to shove more housing on? Then the city isn’t worth anything to anyone and you move on to the next city to ruin.
So Manhattan isn't worth anything to anyone? Funny, I thought it was one of the most valuable and productive places in the country and there were still swarms of people wanting to live there.
I consider high-density housing to be a separate conversation. I entirely agree that high-density housing should be encouraged and would largely solve this issue (assuming apartments can't rent out as AirBNBs like they do so frequently now). However, I don't want "we need more supply" to justify building more housing when we have enough developed land as-is to build high-density housing with ease.
It has nothing to do with supply - there are more houses now than can be occupied in the US. It has everything to do with misusing the supply we have.