Retirees increasingly don't want to live in the empty desert. They want to live in the convenient and familiar places. Except that's where everyone else wants to live too, but since the retirees have the money, the existing land, and the voting power, they're blocking everyone out.

True that many seniors are aging in place and occupying more housing than they need.

Exactly, building in areas where people want to live and work are exactly what these strategies are designed for. You can't ignore the competing interests in these areas and reduce the argument to "build more".

In this vane, I'm tired of the 'right' pointing out the dystopian and ugly 'communist' or 'socialist' mass housing that the USSR and China did during the Cold War. Sorry about aesthetics I guess? Should be more concerned about Evergrande ghost cities, contemporarily.