I understand what it is and why it happens, but often when its explained it seems like no one ever gets into how it can be resisted, fought, or even outright prevented.
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One recurring note in a lot of the responses is to build more affordable housing. But I submit to you that the answer is simply to build more housing, affordable or not. There is research that show that when market-priced housing is built, rents in the area drop, even rents for affordable housing. This is because building market priced housing allows well-off individuals to buy the expensive housing they really want rather than being forced down into the market for what should-be affordable housing, driving the cost for that up until it’s no longer affordable. San Francisco is a great example of that. You’ve got people making $180,000 a year living in studio apartments because there is simply not enough market-priced housing for all the rich people so the “poorer” rich people pay exorbitant rates for the housing which SHOULD be the affordable stuff.
So laws and zoning that require some percentage of new apartments to be affordable housing really aren’t as effective as just letting developers build 100% market-priced housing. Because the affordability requirement discourages them from building at all. And often market-priced housing becomes affordable housing after some period of time when it’s not so new and flashy anymore.
So just build more housing. Any housing, but especially dense housing. Stop the NIMBYs trying to keep their home prices up by prohibiting development, often under the guise of a lot of bullshit (environmental concerns, etc).
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