[ghaff]

And, everywhere, it's about people wanting to live in some specific cities. Even a bit outside of those specific locations isn't necessarily particularly expensive. (Leaving aside ski resorts, especially nice college towns, and the like).

[seanmcdirmid]

I don't know...some countries are just expensive full stop. Lausanne for example, and since public transportation is good enough, you can live outside of the city and still get to work...so those places just get expensive also.

Australia I assume you mean the few places where people actually live in the country vs. the undeveloped outback?

[ghaff]

I don't really have specific knowledge of Australia but within an hour or so radius of Boston/Cambridge (expensive cities), there are reasonably priced exurbs. (Also expensive suburbs/exurbs of course.)

[rgmerk]

Australia is so big that there's still plenty of land available where you could build new cities (and not just in the desert).

It's just that everyone[1], given a choice, would like to live near the beach in Sydney's eastern suburbs[2], and there is most definitely no more land available in those suburbs. So the only alternative is to build up, and the boomers sitting in their multi-million dollar houses that were originally bought for $3.95 don't like that prospect one bit.

[1] Not everyone, but you get the point.

[2] and Melbourne's inner east, and the desirable parts of Brisbane and Perth.