Reply to Why is "growth" good? I'd like fewer people in the area

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Increasing density has become this fetish on the left. Apparently it solves everything.  Someone should go to NYC and see how it’s working for them.[/quote]

Seriously.

This is all we hear about in MoCo.  More density is the answer.  Such BS.

Will housing costs really go down?  Hasn't been the case in NYC.  [/quote]

Imagine you built a million new condo units in Manhattan. Would that make housing there affordable? Or at least cheaper than it is now?

It would put downward pressure on prices because there would be more supply. But if prices actually went down compared to what they would have been otherwise, then demand would go up too (this is the part of the equation that upzoning people conveniently ignore). All the people in the outer boroughs and in New Jersey who have terrible commutes would snap them up, as would people currently living in Austin or Iowa or Maine who want to live in NYC but don't because they couldn't previously afford it. That would drive housing prices back up. The result would be no change in housing prices, and an even more crowded Manhattan.

The issue here isn't supply -- it's desirability. Places where everyone wants to live are always going to be expensive.

Ironically, perhaps given the rhetoric, it's the least densely populated places in this country that are the cheapest places to live -- you can buy a house in Des Moines for $150,000 -- and the most densely populated areas are the most expensive. Because the issue is desirability. [/quote]

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