Exactly - it is a symptom of the different regulations in the different city centers.

Eh.. I saw it more as a symptom of humans breeding. Human population has always been bound by some constraint, and now it seems that shelter is more of a limiting factor than food supply, in western countries at least.

That, and a cultural shift toward wanting to live in cities, even though many of these financially struggling millennials would do just fine financially in more distant suburbs.

It's restrictive zoning laws. Home and property owners have a zeal for politics unmatched when it comes to keeping values up.

The movement away from cities had a lot of reasons that have been solved(jobs came back, riots, red lining, less pollution, less crime) so I'd say the cultural shift was justified to return.

Commuting sucks too.

High density zoning is only a short term solution, and it seems with current policy enactment speed, technology (and especially building regulations), demand will always outpace supply for the foreseeable future.

Naw, take a look at nashville which was expanding insanely fast in population. Rent rose 25% in a low CoL city.

They had a housing shortage for the past few years and removed a lot of restrictions. Recently they actually overbuilt despite a shortage of skilled construction workers.

You can build hella fast when the demand is there and the government wants buildings fast. We're talking skyscrapers in 12-14 months.