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You would run out of people who want to live there faster than you would run out of space.

If the entire US lived at the population density of Manhattan, everyone would fit in 4500 sq miles, which is only seven times the size of Houston.

Just let people build dense housing in the places where people want to live. There is no realistic possibility of running out of space.

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And Manhattan is hardly maximum density. Home building there is as constrained by zoning as it is anywhere else

How come no one talks about infrastructure? Pre pandemic the subway lines like the 45 were at peak capacity.

So fix MTA. Their system expansion budget is currently $15B/year, so at the costs of a low-wage, low-regulation, totally ununionized country like (checks notes) Norway, they could be building 60 km of new lines per year.

Just like that we'll fix the MTA with the wave of a hand. The MTA that spent billions and a decade for a couple of stations. In a mono party City/State where unions are tied to the party machine. Good luck.

It's not like infrastructure is free outside of Manhattan.

Federal, state and local spending in the US on roads adds up to around a quarter of a trillion dollars per year.

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