So yes, it really is "just build more housing." The problem is: why would you build more housing as prices fall?

Property ownership is at the very core of entrenched power, and the foundation of rent-seeking and wealth asymmetry.

If you look at even the Monarchs of long past - it wasn't their 'titles' that made them powerful - it was the economic rent that came along with the land ownership.

Even in more open market economies, property is still is basically long term economics lording over short term economics of wage earning workers.

Being able to kick someone out of their home almost arbitrary basically puts working class people at the 'total whims of the market' and it's one of the most disruptive concepts imaginable.

If we take the view that 'housing is about housing first - only about investment to the extent it does not disrupt housing' - then a different perspective takes shape.

Many Canadian provinces have 'basic rent controls' and it does not generally prevent new housing development.

If anything, providing 'housing stability' is probably the best way to create base prosperity, so those people can go out and spend on all the other things.

There might need to be some degree of leeway here and there for certain kinds of density challenges, but that can be had with rent control

There is almost unlimited land in North America to build on - if in one spot it's a bit difficult - build elsewhere.

If people want to have 'density' then incorporate an area and 'build density' in that area.

Also it does need to be 'affordable' but that can work with regulations.

Edit: our housing problems are about screwed up management, it's actually not even an ideological problem underneath. Like 'rent control' the way it is framed scares some people, but its literally province wide in Ontario, Quebec and it's a 'non issue' for new unit hinderance. Even the nimbyism stuff can be worked around: if people don't want high-rises next to them, it's their right, but there's a lot less opposition to 'mild density' especially if it fits in local cultural and aesthetic context. We can have our cake and it eat on housing. I think we invent ideological lenses because it's easier to frame 'narratives' than it is just weird policies, special circumstances, hiccups, different municipal things going on all at once.

Building enough housing that rents go down is the same thing as lowering crime so not much of an issue there.

When you aren't building more housing, for whatever reason, rent control is the only thing that prevents domestic 'immigrants' into your city from making all the residents homeless.

Since cities can't stop migration into them, it's the only tool they have to protect their existing residents.

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PS. If you believe in trial-by-combat for housing, why not a similar approach to border control? It's the same concept, open it all up and let the market decide whether your existence is worth it.

There are billions of honest, hard-working, capable people who will happily pay more than you for where you live, do your work for less pay than you're willing to accept, and would love to live... Wherever you currently feel entitled to live.

What gives you any right to deny the market from improving the welfare of your landlord and employer?

Build more housing? In a place like Austin, you can just keep building out, basically. To a point. Eventually cities doing this reach a limit. Houston and Atlanta are pretty much at or beyond that limit.

And it's not that building low-density SFH housing is the most economic. It's simply the most subsidized. Every road, every parking space, every sewer pipe, every water pipe, every utility pole, every school, every hospital, every police station, every fire station... they all add factor in to the true cost of housing and the more spread out things are, the more expensive those things become. Taken to extremes, look at the billions Houston spends now to add just one more lane (because this one will totally solve traffic) on, say, the Katy Freeway or the ring roads.

Yes it does need to be affordable. NYC is the posterchild for this. Nothing that's getting built on billionaire's row will ever trickle down to being affordable housing. They build ultra-luxury housing because it's the most profitable and it does absolutely nothing for anyone else because these units are just ways for non-residents (mostly) to park wealth and not pay their fair share of taxes.

Rent control is the wrong solution for the right problem and it's typically American. By that I mean it forces the solution onto private landlords who are going to do everything possible to get out of those obligations and deliver subpar but compliant housing. And they'll demand tax breaks for it. When in fact the solution is for the government to supply a large chunk of the housing market ie social housing. But there's a pervasive and wrong idea that we can only solve problems in the private sector and that's nothing more than a wealth transfer from the government to the already-wealthy.

"Just build more housing". Yeah, and then you get Houston. Cities need to be planned. Cities require infrastructure. And one of the most important thing cities need is public transit infrastructure, something sadly lacking in virtually every American city.

The core to so many of these problems is that we need to stop treating housing as a speculative asset. Owning two or more houses should be incredibly difficult and expensive and should be taxed punitively. By this I mean the capital gains on non-primary residences should be 80% and property taxes should be significantly higher.

Also "Wipe out a whole boatload of techbros who artificially inflate prices". Nobody is talking about that part of the equation.

Austin was one of the places a lot of tech folks flocked to when everybody was working online. RTO and layoffs have wiped a lot of them out. I'd estimate almost 1/3 of the tech folks that were floating around last year are now in other cities.

Homes for people. Not investors.

> Build more housing. Keep law and order.

Safety (law and order) increases housing costs, as you say. It's desireable on its own, but it does not solve housing cost. NYC is very safe and very expensive. Crime is way down in most of the US, and housing costs are much higher.

the little old lady living in a rent controlled apartment is a big part of why rents are high in that area: she was part of what made the community thrive. we would do well to compensate her for this.

Yes, it does need to be affordable, and a certain percentage of it needs to be non-market housing. Housing isn't an elastic commodity. Get real.

And don't get me wrong, asbestos and lead are wonderful construction materials. Cheap, durable, and high quality. It's just a shame it causes all sorts of health complications when we use them, right? I mean, it would definitely make housing cheaper, but also cause all kinds of health problems.