Indeed; my point was more that even if we decided to build so much new housing that prices fell by half, it still wouldn't bring us anywhere close to Paris, muc

Indeed; my point was more that even if we decided to build so much new housing that prices fell by half, it still wouldn't bring us anywhere close to Paris, much less Manhattan or Hong Kong. Since realistically we're probably not going to do even that, fears of Manhattanization are completely unfounded.