Two factors perpetuate this:
1) Americans have a self-hating working class.
2) American home-owners are politically organized, and constantly lobby to prevent the construction of both new single-family houses and apartment buildings in general.
1) Americans have a self-hating working class.
2) American home-owners are politically organized, and constantly lobby to prevent the construction of both new single-family houses and apartment buildings in general.
That's over-generalizing. Many locations in the USA have sensible zoning. SF is the exception.
[1] -- http://www.vox.com/2016/6/16/11948630/somerville-zoning-ille...
Every 5 or 10 years an entirely new development emerges.
Any hindrance occurs to municipalities without room to grow. And for city zoning, it doesn't appear they have an issue "building up" instead of out.