Ask HN: We need to solve the housing crisis
There has been a housing crisis since the late 90s in most countries around the world. We as techies MUST be able to combine house building and apps to solve this problem.
How can we solve this problem?
How can we solve this problem?
Cities have huge positive agglomeration externalities, bigger cities have more than smaller cities. (many reasons are not intuitively obvious or the effect size seems smaller than it is, saying this generates usually torrent of on the spot counterarguments).
People and firms move into cities because they become more productive there. Inefficient zoning and urban planning creates negative externalities that cause friction and limits the growth of cities (negatives outweigh positives when urban planning fails).
The solution is zoning more housing in cities, better urban planning and public infrastructure. This includes fighting against NIMBY's somehow. If you zone and build enough housing, housing prices and rents decrease. People who already own property, don't like it.