There's a delicate balance of property owners using their power to prevent new construction and densification in an attempt to keep their property values high by preventing competition and going too far where you destroy your local economy because the people who actually do the work can't afford to live there.

This is the same problem as with overfishing.

Huh?

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/585765/golden-gates... is a pretty good look at what's going on.

See: California housing crisis today.

What good is it to build rental properties that will only be used for AirBNB? You’ve ruined even more of the environment just to enrich a landlord.

It has nothing to do with supply - there are more houses now than can be occupied in the US. It has everything to do with misusing the supply we have.

It is everything to do with supply. Location. Location. Location. People want to live in certain places. If there isn't enough housing there, prices go up. Building lots of housing in small places is not bad for the environment. It is much better for the environment than sprawl.

Vacant housing in Cyanide Springs, Oklahoma is useless to people who want to be near jobs in Palo Alto.

It has everything to do with the supply of housing and how it's been severely constrained over the years.

And what about when you’ve exhausted every square inch of land to shove more housing on? Then the city isn’t worth anything to anyone and you move on to the next city to ruin.

At some point, enough is enough and you have to accept that there’s no room for more housing without ruining the city. You could focus on reclaiming AirBNBs and vacant housing and you might be able to make a dent in the problem.

Just announce that your city is full and tell everyone to move on. Ruining the city will make landlords money and everyone unhappy.

> And what about when you’ve exhausted every square inch of land to shove more housing on? Then the city isn’t worth anything to anyone and you move on to the next city to ruin.

So Manhattan isn't worth anything to anyone? Funny, I thought it was one of the most valuable and productive places in the country and there were still swarms of people wanting to live there.

The city I lived in, in Italy has like twice as many people as the place I live in the US, in a slightly smaller footprint.

This is accomplished by some clever technology the Italians use: they are able to stack dwelling units on top of one another.

In many ways, it was a more pleasant place to live, since I could walk or bike to so many places.

I consider high-density housing to be a separate conversation. I entirely agree that high-density housing should be encouraged and would largely solve this issue (assuming apartments can't rent out as AirBNBs like they do so frequently now). However, I don't want "we need more supply" to justify building more housing when we have enough developed land as-is to build high-density housing with ease.