[dagw]

If you could just get plenty of cheap land in the suburb down the road someone would have built houses there 30 years ago.

Sure there is land and there are plenty of places where you can buy a nice house for less than, say, $100k. However none of those places are within a one hour commute of where any jobs are.

[thriftwy]

Well, I'm looking at map of Sweden near Stockholm and sure as hell I see a lot of place for building up. Glades with direct access to highway.

[dagw]

And you think that the reason they haven't built on that land is lack of cheap labor? Labor costs are simply not a factor when it comes to the economics of building houses in and around places like Stockholm.

[thriftwy]

I think that the reason they haven't build on that land is unwillingness to build on that land.

They surely can overcome this unwillingness, can't they?

And then they actually have access to labor already. Makes things better for virtually anybody, excluding some rent-seekers.

[dagw]

They surely can overcome this unwillingness, can't they?

First of all it's not like they're not building in Stockholm. Secondly most of that 'unused' green land you're probably looking at is public parks and nature reserves. So it really boils down to a debate on the value of nature reserves vs more housing.

Makes things better for virtually anybody, excluding some rent-seekers.

and people who see a value in public parks and nature reserves.

[thriftwy]

You can discern nature reserves, public parks and "wild" parks when you look at OSM, for example. That still leads to some place to develop on.

There is no debate. You can always build up around a city. Housing prices bubble shows they're not building fast enough, by far.

Not building is a non-solution. It's not sustainable.