[lonelappde]

People aren't dumb. Building a city requires decades of coordinated action by thousands to millions of people, and it only works if rich people volunteer or are coerced to give up the disproportionate amount of real estate they enjoy, and no one gets a luxurious amount of space. It's not a matter of individuals seeing the light.

[timerol]

It's also a matter of the government allowing a city to be built. This sounds trivial, but is actually the biggest component to the lack of affordability in SF and NYC.

There are places where a lot of people want to live, but the gov't is actively preventing housing being built there. Instead of allowing the next increment of development (SFH -> missing middle -> mid-rise apartment buildings -> high rise apartment buildings), many US cities do their best to block development wherever possible. The only developments that can make it through the process are 1) huge, 2) well-backed by capital, and 3) hugely profitable.

We need less Hudson Yards, and more of https://twitter.com/mnolangray/status/1163863367439802369

[wbl]

NYC billionaires did not stop nyc from being a city.