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Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

In a world of ever-growing population, I think you're economically constrained to smaller and smaller spaces or farther away (or otherwise less valuable) spaces. Pushing back on smaller spaces just changes the variables by which housing will be allocated economically.

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Cities only take a small fraction of land. Growing population doesn't really matters here; (un)willingless to build does.

IMO, unwillingness to live farther out on that large fraction of land that isn't the city is a bigger issue.

Why is it an issue? Why not let people live where they want to live and just build up?

It seems to be an issue only in that people seem to want in a certain place but not pay the prevailing rent to do so. If they're willing to pay the prevailing rent, there is no issue.

In a neighborhood like mine (75% SFR, 25% MFR free-standing homes in West Cambridge), you can bet that I'll object to zoning changes that would allow "just building up". I don't need the noise, traffic, additional pressures on the school system, nor do I want to live in a mid-rise and high-rise district. If I did, I'd have bought in one...

First of all, what's "prevailing rent" now would be "ridiculously expensive" few years back. That's lack of supply skewing market.

There should be other options than building in your backyard. Find underused places and build up there. The biggest problem is what to build and how: it's amazingly easy to screw this one up (too sparse? too dense? too high? too low?)

One man's "lack of supply" is another man's "uptick in demand" skewing the market.

You can't simply conclude it's one xor the other.

uptick in demand should be met with uptick in supply.

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