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by ZoomerCretin 915 days ago
Sure, but if prices rise high enough, that high demand induces more suppliers of those services. In cities, where rent is 3-5x that of rural areas, new suppliers cannot enter the market to provide more of that service unless it involves wages high enough to pay for rent. There is a finite amount of space in a city, especially those as extremely zoning-constrained as American cities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

This "everyone will charge you the most they can get away with" doesn't always have to mean prices go parabolic forever; we can enact simple urban land use reforms that allows more housing units and commercial spaces to be built, which can reduce the price of rent for businesses and the rent of housing units that businesses pay indirectly via wages.