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Comment by throwaway98121 | Hacker News Reader

Any place with career opportunities means exorbitant housing costs and other taxes. Regardless of your politics, there’s a real wealth disparity, and increased demand is only driving up costs.

I don’t know what the solution is, but the first step is acknowledging the problem.

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Taxes 20% higher wouldn't matter so much if your rent isn't 5000% higher than in other states.

It's housing costs that are strangling these cities.

Okay housing prices are crazy, but 5000% is a bit of a stretch even between the cheapest city's median 1br and the most expensive city's median 1br. I'd say closer to 900-1200%.

The problem is compounded by this: while there's a lot of upward mobility in certain industry careers in these cities, the normal-person jobs have roughly the same returns as anywhere else in the country. But the housing doesn't have that kind of distribution, it's heavily skewed to be commensurate with the particularly high income folk.

It's still a staggering amount compared to any marginal increase in tax.

There’s no engineering reason hosing in these areas can’t grow as fast as jobs. Tokyo’s population has tripled over the last twenty years while rent has been pretty much flat.

Seattle has produced way more hosing lately and house prices have crashed. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/why-are-se...

> Tokyo’s population has tripled over the last twenty years

No, it hasn't? Tokyo's already an anomaly in shrinking Japan by staying roughly the same size, and last I checked it was also forecast to start losing people around 2020.

http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.ht...

You’re right. I’m wrong. Tokyo has grown by 3m people in the last 20 years. It has not tripled. It’s increased by ~10%.

Building in cities is difficult partly due to the way zoning laws work in the US. Established zones also have residents that have political clout, which encourages sprawling into uncontroversial areas.

https://devonzuegel.com/post/north-american-vs-japanese-zoni...?

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