housing in the areas where people want to live has gone absolutely bonkers and it's pretty much all due to a refusal to build. you can *maybe* argue NYC is hitting some physical limits, but you could close to double SF's population if you just built more.

There is a hell of a lot of NYC that could be a lot denser. Most of Queens is single family housing! The city needs to build a lot!

Re: NYC - I don't believe residential construction ever went back up after going down after 1960s rezoning. Big claim tho so possibly totally wrong. There is a lot of sq ft dedicated to office space tho (conversions, sadly, are very expensive)

Seattle has built and built but it hasn’t done much for affordability. The new spaces charge insane rents which means the real competition for normal people is older apts that are inflated in price now too

Specifically, refusal to build FOR PEOPLE WHO AREN'T RICH. I see new mcmansions going in every day. What I don't see are new entry-level apartments or townhomes; everything's 'luxury', with the price tag to match.