[zepto]

> with sufficient supply.

You keep saying this as if supply can be increased arbitrarily. It simply can’t.

You can increase density for short while until you hit limits, but network effects will keep demand increasing as you do.

Obviously demand is not infinite, but there is no reason to suppose that currently desirable places can be made affordable.

[Kalium]

> You keep saying this as if supply can be increased arbitrarily. It simply can’t.

True! You eventually run into physical limits of density and what we are capable of constructing. However, this naively seems likely to be far higher than we have now.

Some back of the envelope math is in order, then. SF has a surface area of about 30,000 acres. Kowloon Walled City, a very dense place that actually existed, had between 33,000 and 50,000 people in 6.5 acres. Extrapolating, that puts SF at a possible maximum population of between 152 and 230 million people. That's using construction technology from the 60s and 70s, so we could perhaps do better today.

With this in mind, it does seem likely that the density of the SF Bay specifically and California in general could be reasonably increased. There's quite a lot of room for opportunity to house people between SF's current population of 875000 and a population several times that of California.

> You can increase density for a while, but network effects will keep demand increasing as you do.

Sure! As I touched on previously, induced demand in housing is a very real effect. You're absolutely right. However "any induced demand effects are overwhelmed by the effect of increased supply". https://appam.confex.com/appam/2018/webprogram/Paper25811.ht...

I believe, and please correct me if I am mistaken, that what is described here as induced demand is what you are referring to as network effects.

> Obviously demand is not infinite, but there is no reason to suppose that currently desirable places can be made affordable.

Expensive places have been made less exorbitantly expensive before. That seems like an excellent reason to suppose that a currently desirable place can be made affordable. I understand that this is a matter of opinion on which reasonable people might differ.

[zepto]

> Expensive places have been made less exorbitantly expensive before.

Places like SF? What examples are you thinking of?

Manhattan is a lot like SF, but is 4x the density. It has done very little to prevent prices rising.

[nobody9999]

>Obviously demand is not infinite, but there is no reason to suppose that currently desirable places can be made affordable.

That's a fair point. But no one (at least not in the comments I've read so far) has discussed the converse: making less desirable places (which are affordable) more desirable.

There are many places which have experienced huge population decreases over the past 50 years or so.

And many of those places are in pretty difficult economic circumstances too.

While many of the most lucrative jobs are in or near urban centers (driving up the price of housing in and around those areas), it's clear that many of those same jobs can be done remotely.

And so what's stopping folks from moving from, say, the New York City area to small towns New York, Pennsylvania or Ohio?

The reasons are several and are self-reinforcing:

1. Large urban areas have lots of economic activity, generally leading to improvements in infrastructure and facilities;

2. Small towns have less economic activity, generally leading to fewer improvements in infrastructure and facilities;

3. Young people flock to densely populated areas because that's where other young people are and where opportunities for economic and career advancement exist.

These (and other) issues lead to the high price of housing in densely populated areas and the slow death of small towns.

So what does this have to do with expensive housing in densely populated areas? A lot.

Improving the infrastructure in small towns (municipal (mult-)gigabit fiber to the premise, fast and reliable rail links to population centers, rezoning to allow more rentals -- both houses and apartments, incentives for small businesses, etc., etc., etc.) could make them much more desirable places to live.

Those, combined with the ability to work remotely, could remedy a significant portion of the housing price issues we face.

If a small town could support remote knowledge workers, other people and businesses would move in to support them.

Over the long term (50+ years), this could significantly redistribute population (and housing) in ways that would be a huge benefit to the economy.

Unfortunately, most people and corporations are only concerned about the next quarter or, at most, the next fiscal year.

There are valid, sustainable ways to deal with these issues, but unless we focus on the medium to long term (10-50 years), it will never happen.

More's the pity.

[catlikesshrimp]

You could have said all that in fewer words:

You "just have" to found new cities. Sounds difficult.

[nobody9999]

That's really reductive and doesn't represent my point of view at all.

Do you want me to explain it again?