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Comment by theluketaylor | Hacker News Reader

You're reading the demand/supply situation backwards. Even with all the construction in Brooklyn, supply is failing to meet demand, therefore prices are going up. We've failed to meet supply in urban spaces for several generations now and have a massive deficit to pay off before adding any supply can actually drive prices down; we're barely adding enough units to affect the rate of increase of prices.

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> You're reading the demand/supply situation backwards.

No. I'm reading it exactly right. Density _causes_ higher prices. It makes it easier to create jobs near dense locations, which in turn makes it more attractive for people to move in. This in turn increases housing costs.

It's a chicken and egg problem. But remember an egg by itself wouldn't survive, and a single chicken in isolation can't produce a viable egg.

That's all only a problem when supply of housing is constricted, which it has been for generations in all urban spaces. Otherwise it's just wealth generation. It's also a problem when economic activity is limited to a handful of key urban spaces, but that isn't true. There are plenty of places to go make a good living. There just isn't anywhere to live.

There should be plenty of different levels of density for people to choose to live in as everyone has different preferences. What's not sustainable in any way is exclusive single family zoning. If, as so many backers of exclusionary zoning claim, people only want to live in SFH, why would we need a law to force that to be the only built form? Surely every single unit built of any other type would fail to find a resident.

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