[Kalium]

Decades of policy designed to promote detached single family houses, discourage density, and make it easy to object to construction have combined with tax policy favoring stasis to create a political environment incredibly hostile to housing. This drives up the price of land significantly.

Yes, construction can be made cheaper. The current way to do this is by using pre-fabricated modules turned out by a factory. This reduces the cost and time of construction somewhat, but does nothing at all for the price of the land.

[caeril]

> promote detached single family houses, discourage density,

The cheapest housing in this country comprises primarily single-family homes in very low-density areas. These homes are substantially less expensive than the vast majority of dense urban bugman studio pods.

But yes, if you exclude flyover country because you regard farmers, ranchers, loggers, or steelworkers as subhuman (a common urban attitude), then your abject denial of reality makes sense.

[Kalium]

Please bear in mind that in this particular context, we're talking about Los Angeles. There are few farmers, ranchers, and loggers in rural LA.

[caeril]

Yes, but people can move.

Remaining in an urban hellhole is a choice. Bitching about the consequences of your choice, and blaming local policies for your own cost issues when you could literally just get out of there, is a whole level of solipsism I can't believe HN takes seriously.

Everything in life has tradeoffs. People complaining about a situation of their own making are simply unwilling to tolerate the "ick" of living among people who aren't fellow bugmen. And that's fine, but they need to own that they've chosen their place along the spectrum of tradeoffs and stop bitching about the choice they've made.