And this really seems like it's going to keep going that way in Austin. Any time I'm driving around, I'm passing under-construction apartment and condo buildings all over town. It's nuts. On my regular commutes, I pass probably 10-20 buildings, and just within a mile of me, there's maybe 5 multi-hundred unit buildings that are nearing completion.

Erm, Austin is "solving" this mostly by creating an ever larger, car-centric sprawl.

That only works when you have essentially unlimited uninhabited land on your borders.

I'm personally not from the US, but rather from a city that ist often cited as an example for counteracting irrational prices on the housing market, Vienna. (Back in the 1920s, when rents for a new home where found to be unsustainable by meeting 25% of an average worker's wage – or what may be deemed more idyllic conditions nowadays –, the city decided to invested massively into communal housing.) Having said that, I think the major problem is that homes have been turned into assets and that the short term monetization of these assets, as in short term limited contracts and Airbnbs, is a major danger to established communities. (Depending on where you're coming from, this may be even a good thing, like in flexibilization of the work force, but it is somewhat disastrous for the general living conditions and social climate, even the buildings themselves – as there is no long term interest on the side of their inhabitants –, and only adds to general displacement effects.)