If only builders could figure out some way to consolidate multiple living units under single roof, with shared building systems. Maybe something in the vertical dimension?
I think housing isn't an ordinary durable good the way economists think. If there was a shortage of toasters you couldn't make money by churning toasters like you can if there is a shortage of housing. But you could make money importing toasters. With housing when there is a shortage the effective way to make money is by using access to cheap credit to bid prices higher.
So a housing price spiral is a result of a properly functioning market.
In Australia something similar happened with legal immigration going wild. Obviously there are issues of regulations and NIMBYsm which are far worst than in the US but also because construction unions opposed visas for construction workers, so there is a shortage while all kind of people with unnecessary jobs streamed into the country. The squeeze is from both sides of the political spectrum, asset holding class benefit from it financially and the left benefit from it electoraly by creating poverty and state dependency. No wonder extreme political groups from both ends of the political sides are gaining traction. Those politician betrayed the middle class and working class.
I know it’s good for Blue Team redistricting, but I think we need to seriously reconsider the viability of moving every human on earth to 5 metro areas in the US.
People want to take care of their families, and they go where the jobs are. This has been happening for hundreds of years now, I don't know if it's possible to turn it around.
Higher-level governments elected by the electorate of a larger region are trying hard to make it explicitly illegal for those metro areas to do those things.