Your comment about tents is a bit much. There is a better point to be made about innovating on lower cost housing situations (building and design codes usually drive up cost). Can we make safe buildings with shared recreational and common areas to cut down on square footage and lower rent? Can we save on space and costs in the long run by improving noise insulation? Why couldn't there be a WalMart (or whatever your preferred alternatives are) on the bottom floors of a high rise apartment?

Though I fully agree about minimum wage laws. It's a big risk to hire someone off the street if you can't even start her at a lower introductory wage that ramps up aggressively with proven performance. Governments that mandate high wages must logically assume responsibility for figuring out a way to make sure everyone can do something worth $12/hour (or whatever the wage is). Alternately, an aggressive guaranteed income or earned income tax credit can help with this sort of scenario. But it needs to be paired with a drop in the minimum wage to work.