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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Well, think whether the market conditions that lead to it could be recreated today, and then you'll see how the free market fails to deliver a lot of housing fast. Developers have long ago realized it's better for them to pump out fewer houses with more profit margin slower, than lots of houses with little profit margins. They get a planning permission on a giant site for a 1000 houses but only build 50 a year to not disrupt the high prices they can charge for each unit. That's free market for you right now.

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This is such a fundamental misunderstanding of how the housing market works, and totally ignores apartments/midrises/highrises. The problem with housing in the US lies with overregulation (mostly in the form of zoning). I know this well, as someone who has attended numerous planning meetings in Chicago, I have seen many buildings reduced in unit count solely due to NIMBYs (mostly retired people, as these meetings are often during the day or the immediately 5-7pm time when many people are still commuting home from work).

No idea about the US, but that is indeed how it happens on this side of the pond - developers rarely build mid or high rises, it's all single family homes.

As far as big cities go, Chicago is a very easy city to build in. However, as you surely know, it follows an informal system called Aldermanic Prerogative, which gives a lot of influence to the alderman in charge of each ward. If the NIMBYs in your local area have excessive sway, it’s because your local alderman depends on them.

In my old neighborhood, if a developer wanted to build a high rise with 300 apartments, they’d make a proposal for 350 apartments, have a few public meetings, let people yell at them for a couple hours, and make a “concession” of reducing the project to 300 apartments. Then everyone goes home happy. Everyone knew that was the game, except perhaps a few obtuse NIMBYs that thought they were accomplishing something.

In the mile or two south of Roosevelt Rd, there are 5000-10000 permitted apartments/condos, just waiting for some developer to get a loan and pull permits to start construction. No public meetings needed. They could start building next week.

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