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A comment on Made in America is back, leaving US factories scrambling to find workers. Parent comment

Re:Made in America is back, leaving US factories scrambling ... by geysersam on Monday October 10, 2022 @02:18AM (#33148362)
> how much people can borrow

This is the main factor, and it's a result of the monetary policy of the last decades.

Since this number has been increasing compared to wages, it's becoming less sensible to build apartments for rental. But at the same time, those are needed to increase density and availability of affordable housing in attractive cities.

It's a mess.

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Re:Made in America is back, leaving US factories scrambling ... by Karrot_Kream on Monday October 10, 2022 @04:12AM (#33149007)
It's complicated. The loose monetary policy is certainly one aspect. Another is that most American city-center residential areas are still zoned at low densities. If organic growth could lead to organic densification in central locations, there would be less impact to the housing market, but American zoning is stuck in the aftermath of WWII and is loathe to densify.
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Re:Made in America is back, leaving US factories scrambling ... by cloudier on Monday October 10, 2022 @08:35PM (#33158078)
Yep. One study^1 estimates that zoning and land use restrictions across the country leads to an (unnecessary) increase in housing costs worth 2% of the US GDP (about $400 billion).

[1]: https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.32.1.3

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