[AndyMcConachie]

What you've described is primarily an American problem, especially a Californian problem. As someone who spends a lot of time in Washington DC and The Netherlands it's not nearly as bad in either place. NIMBYism is particularly terrible in CA, but my experience in The Netherlands is that it doesn't cause near as many problems.

[dep_b]

In The Netherlands you see that the stock of affordable public housing is rapidly dwindling in favor for expansive private upper class housing. The government introduced a more liberal market driven approach in the 90's but it still takes time for the real shock to arrive.

Waiting lists of 20 years or more are not unheard of. When I was younger and got on one of those lists it was "just" 10 years. So 10 years added in about 20 years I guess. Probably I would have waited for 15 years if I would've waited.

I find it pretty shocking personally to see a first world country still didn't fix it's housing shortage 70 years after WWII ended.