[ghaff]

Irrelevant to what? The price of attractive but very compact housing on cheap land away from population centers people want to live around basically isn't a problem for any but a minuscule slice of the population. It certainly doesn't address any issue that a potential tech worker in the bay area or NYC has.

[_m8fo]

Did you even read the article? This has nothing to do with big cities. The author explains how the development of infrastructure, notably highways changed the dynamic to sprawling suburbia and how suburban "nodes" link to the main metroplex in "second-tier cities." This was because of the fact that you can just drive further and keep your job.

Affordable housing requires affordable land. Big cities almost by definition do not have affordable land, therefore the housing will never be affordable in the way the author is asserting.

[ghaff]

Yes, I read the article. All the handwaving about maybe land on the fringe... but maybe that would actually be more expensive because of land use restrictions... and utilities would have to happen somehow but not clear about the costs.

>Affordable housing requires affordable land. Big cities almost by definition do not have affordable land, therefore the housing will never be affordable in the way the author is asserting.

I agree. My assumption was that, given this context, he was talking about the outlying areas of cities people were interested in. Of course, otherwise, land prices are not the issue and housing construction prices aren't really the issue either.