[AnthonyMouse]

> The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there.

A major reason for the preference is the lower price per square foot in the suburbs than in higher density areas. They can't afford that much space in the city, which in turn is so expensive because the amount of high density housing is artificially limited by zoning.

You have to let the market decide how much high density housing there should be before you can score "the market has decided" as a point.

[TheCoelacanth]

The market has decided. High-density is better. If it weren't, then it wouldn't be so much more expensive.

[AnthonyMouse]

That argument doesn't work either. If you pass a law restricting the supply of A and then notice that A costs more than B, it could as easily be because of lower supply as higher demand.

If you want to know what happens in a free market you have to let a free market happen.

[johnweldon]

> A major reason for the preference is the lower price per square foot in the suburbs than in higher density areas.

I think that's a big part of it, but also people choose suburbs and rural living for reasons more to do with quality of life rather than cost.

[AnthonyMouse]

Which is fine. The proposal isn't a law against low density housing, it's to remove the laws against high density housing.

[johnweldon]

I think the original comment proposal was (my, slightly sarcastic, paraphrase) "stop incentivizing anything but urban infrastructure and living, everything else is a ponzi scheme"

I agree with your proposal.

I have no objection to removing laws against high density housing.

[AnthonyMouse]

I agree the original comment was ambiguous. It's widely discussed that the incentives for suburban housing are the laws prohibiting high density, e.g. minimum parking requirements or zoning rules that just expressly ban tall buildings. But in theory you could get there by e.g. prohibiting parking areas, which is silly and pointless because the reason for the existing laws requiring them is that a free market would produce less of them than there are now.