"A small group of people [who] make our cities unlivable"... you mean, real estate developers?

The people who are regularly blocked from building housing are the ones making our cities unlivable?

Well, I was obviously kidding, developers who build overpriced housing, or unneeded office or retail are part of the problem just like developers who build homes, especially affordable ones, are part of the solution.

Developers can't build "overpriced housing". If it's overpriced, it won't sell and the developer loses money until they right-price it and it sells.

Ah, the wisdom of the market. I could rephrase that as "housing targeted for the rich" who are already pretty well-served, unlike the poor.

It's not the "wisdom of the market" it is simply that pricing isn't set by the seller, it is set by a dynamic process between seller and the buyer.

If you don't believe me, try selling a luxury good targeting a rich buyer on FB Marketplace and see if you can set the pricing arbitrarily high.

You're completely missing the point. Unless your name is Ferrari or something like that, you didn't build said luxury item.

How does a company that builds buildings make cities unlivable? Replacing some SFH with an 8 unit apartment or whatever would make the city more livable.

Be careful what you wish for. China also has the hukou system, which is sort of an internal passport that effectively prevents many people from moving into the popular tourist locations. Get out into the rural areas and you'll still see a lot of real poverty, although housing is cheap enough there that there aren't many homeless.

There's also a cultural factor at work. Allowing a relative to be homeless causes loss of face so family members feel more obligated to pitch in and help them out, sometimes to the extent of providing a free room. (I'm stereotyping a bit here but it's generally true.)

Countries generally have a immigration system that prevents people from moving there when you don't have enough money to support yourself.

In my experience most countries put barriers in place to prevent people from moving into the country, from another country, when you don't have enough money to support yourself, but I believe the parent is describing a system that puts barriers in place for internal migration of its citizens.

Russia has a similar system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_registration_in_Russi...

Read again. This is for Chinese citizens.

In China there might not be people peeing in the subway, but when I was there a couple years ago there were plenty of people (especially children) peeing in the streets

I've been there last month for a week and didn't see any.