[macspoofing]

>Many supply restrictions are geographic rather than based on regulation.

That's true. At the end of the day there are only so many desirable beachfront properties, or direct views on Central Park. Those are going to be expensive.

>Singapore has a semi-socialized system that seems to work.

I know very little about Singapore, but I'll make two comments:

1) I'm skeptical about the feasibility of models that work in tiny regions with very specific constraints and applying them to big nations. But maybe there's something there to learn from.

2) At the end of the of the day, it's not magic. You have a lot of people, in a relatively small geographic area - you need to focus on density. You don't need a heavily socialized system to build dense housing - you just need to align regulations.

[seanmcdirmid]

Singapore is dense like NYC is, and, outside of its public housing program, is equally, if not more, expensive than NYC. Singapore is otherwise a very capitalistic country, and its housing program is basically ownership with restrictions that fade overtime.

But more to the point: every super dense city I’ve lived in has had more expensive housing than the lesser dense cities I’ve lived in. Obviously something else is going on, density itself isn’t magic.

[saosebastiao]

> Obviously something else is going on, density itself isn’t magic.

Of course it's not. You can have dense cheap cities (Tokyo, Chicago), dense expensive cities (Hong Kong, NYC), sprawled cheap cities (Houston, Indianapolis), and sprawled expensive cities (Palo Alto, Los Angeles). Density doesn't make a city cheap any more than it makes it expensive. Supply relative to demand does.

If you want a nearly perfect predictor of housing prices, don't look at density, look at the vacancy rate. The vacancy rate is probably the most direct way of measuring supply vs demand. If you have a high vacancy rate, you have a cheap city, and if you have a low vacancy rate, you have an expensive city.

The reason density is often touted as the solution is because increasing density is an increase in supply. It only moves the needle in one direction. Sprawl also moves the needle in that same direction. Cities with lots of space to move out have both options, and typically sprawl is cheaper. A city like Seattle or San Francisco doesn't have both options, so density is the only way to increase supply.