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Comment by logicchains | Hacker News Reader

Governments caused this problem by fighting tooth and nail to keep immigration levels high. Without that, house prices in most developed countries would be falling now, like they are in Japan, because a decreasing population means less demand for housing.

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Cure worse than the disease. A aging population is economically ruinous.

Compare the growth in GDP per capita in Japan Vs the UK, the UK isn't doing particularly better in spite of all that immigration.

It's not obvious to me that comparing GDP per capita is a fair comparison when talking about one country with immigration vs one without. A lot of the immigration I believe to be not so skilled. But we needed lower-skill jobs filled too.

its quite complicated and changes over time.

Post Brexit changes make it easier for high skilled workers and harder for low skilled. I have not idea how big the actual change has been.

There have been other events and rule changes that have had an impact - covid and Ukrainian visas.

Some interesting data here: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/mi...

It looks to me that the Uk has done a lot better:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...

Immigration is not to blame. Gulf states have massive immigration and expat populations - multiple times that of the locals and yet they manage to manage and house them just fine.

This is a bit like saying that high nobility can afford to house its extended family : what about everyone else that did not inherit vast sums of money (hydrocarbons) ?

It is not about having money or not. It is about how the question of immigration is treated. If poor people without UK citizenship were not allowed to live or own property in the big cities, the rents there would have been substantially lower.

Housing prices are falling in Japan because they have the most YIMBY zoning laws in the developed world so they actually expand their housing stock. Also because their economy is shit since they dont allow any immigration.

good lord the unsubstantiated zenophobia. please share some data to support this claim.

here is counterpoint: i live in a place where housing prices rose higher than the national average during a time period when the state experienced out migration.

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