[Alex3917]

This. Look at how many millions of square feet of real estate have been announced in NYC in the past week alone: https://newyorkyimby.com/

Given that each city effectively has unlimited housing potential, the idea that tourists are driving out locals makes zero sense.

[timr]

Right. Because NYC is a magical fairytale-land of affordable rents.

Construction does not fix the fact that tourists pay 5-10x what local residents do for the same real estate. If you want to keep that from affecting rents, there's a very effective and inexpensive way to do it: don't let people turn rentals into hotels. Just like New York.

[Alex3917]

> Because NYC is a magical fairytale-land of affordable rents.

I mean if you're willing to take the subway to work, you can get a pretty large 2BR for less than $2K / mo. Yes you need a job to be able to afford that, but not a particularly amazing job. Just not unemployed for the entire year every year.

[timr]

I agree that good transit is the key to affordable housing. Those kinds of apartments aren't located in dense neighborhoods: they're in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. Places are well-connected to Manhattan by transit. Places that would be impractical otherwise.

https://streeteasy.com/for-rent/nyc/price:-2000%7Cbeds:2?vie...

[andrepd]

I've no idea what you mean when you say "cities have unlimited housing". Should we just bulldoze everything and build skyscrapers, is that your idea of a good city to live?

[lev99]

Not everything, but North American cities need a lot more skyscrapers. Instead most North American cities sprawl.

Density increases innovation. Density decreases travel carbon emissions.

[andrepd]

I don't know about North America, but replacing everything with skyscrapers is simply not the least bit desirable in the vast majority of city centres in Europe, for example.

A city of skyscrapers would also make a pretty dystopian city, the way I see it.