[Kalium]

Liberal here.

Yeah, there really is a need to toss "liberal" in there. More liberal dense cities seem to have this problem much worse than dense less-liberal cities. Qualifier: American cities.

Some of it tends to be due to liberal reflexes (participatory democracy at all levels, favoring small local groups of activists over people who stand to profit, etc.) that backfire writ large. Add in a distrust of markets, and you have a recipe for disaster. San Francisco is a great example.

[zorpner]

You have a serious confounding factor in that urban density correlates highly with liberal political views, at least in America.

[Kalium]

This is true. We can separate out which cities have liberal views from which cities have put liberal urban planning policies in place.

[itsdrewmiller]

Can you cite some evidence for this? My guess is that it breaks down much more on a coastal/inland basis than a liberal/conservative one.

[Kalium]

Austin and San Antonio is an informative comparison. They're both inland cities, but Austin has placed significantly more liberal policy into practice. They have problems with spiking rent.