Unless you want to build more sprawl-oriented social housing, you'd still need, in most American cities, to reform zoning codes and building codes (single stair and elevator reform) to get Vienna style social housing.

It's a "yes, and" problem though, mostly. Let the market build what it can, and if you want to pursue social housing, do that too - just don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and delay the reforms while you try and put together all the social housing pieces.

No, you need a government agency which will build social housing.

Not once has the private sector ever been "encouraged" to build social housing with deregulation. The only reason it keeps getting touted as The Solution in the media is because deregulation would boost their profits.

The bottleneck is land, anyway. If you dont tax that enough or take it with eminent domain then you'll end up like San Francisco with absurdly low density housing and criminally high rents.

The problem in San Francisco is NIMBYism, where supposed 'socialists' try and stop purely below market rate housing because it's the wrong shape or size or something.

Of course. they have enormous mortgages and anything which drags down the absurd value of their home is an ominous threat.

Blaming "fake socialists" or "nimbyism" doesnt change the fact that they are entirely rational actors in an economic system that is rigged to make the wealthy wealthier (e.g. with prop 13).

In fact, it's a clever rhetorical device to conceal the root cause and displace criticism towards the main culprits and, well, you fell for it.

NIMBYs exist throughout the US, even in states without Prop 13 or similar things.

Some of them are even renters.

No one is trying to conceal the problems with unfair tax systems - indeed, the people who spend time advocating for housing are probably your most likely allies in trying to fix it.

It’s worth noting that a major confounding factor is that, unlike most cities with a housing crisis, Vienna is well below its population peak and so does not need to build nearly as much housing

During that peak Vienna’s housing situation was infamously bad though. You’d have single rooms shared by multiple families and beds being used by multiple people on a timetable.

What city wasn’t that true of? Most cities with a housing crisis like New York had population growth on top of that, so Vienna just hasn’t had to walk and chew gum in that sense.

Technically yes, but lol no. Population is about the same as at its peak and density (person/m2) was about four times that of today. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlafg%C3%A4nger https://www.demokratiezentrum.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10...

You could say that about every Industrial Revolution city. They just have also had to deal with absolute population growth as well.