> In most places, regulation is a minor hurdle for a decent real estate investor, all of whom regard single-family and small multi-family dwellings as a slobber-inducing opportunity when demand is high.

But you're conflating the two types of places: most places aren't "high" demand, and those that do have super inflated costs also have processes by which developers are regularly stopped. California in particular has this problem.

In fact reading your post really made it clear to me the dichotomy between places that welcome new people and have governments that try to serve the people (by letting developers build), and places that try to enrich current residents by blocking out newcomers and thereby forcing demand to be far higher than supply.