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Because people believe they are nobly resisting capitalism by preventing housing construction in cities, as the population continues to grow and urbanize, capitalism’s most important feedback loop (high demand -> high prices -> more profit —> more supply) is short circuited.

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Because the vast majority of new housing projects in cities are luxury housing designed to further enrich property owners and would be unaffordable to most people in need anyway. If you're poor and starving and all I'm offering is $90 filet mignon, I'm not really helping you.

A 600sqft box is a luxury because we have decided it should be rare.

We are massively overbuilding a housing type with offensive levels of resource consumption built in: single family detached.

Cap VW at 100 cars a year. Think they’re going to be Jettas or Porsche? Probably Porsche. Doing that, then getting mad that cars are unaffordable, and saying “clearly if we let the automakers make more cars they will just be more Porsches, that’s not helping” would be silly.

Even if what you're saying were true, it'd still drive housing prices down for the poor. I.e. the rich would slightly shift towards these new luxury units, leaving more supply for those in mediocre housing units.

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