I did a crude analysis of the effects of density on cost in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12362684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1236

I did a crude analysis of the effects of density on cost in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12362684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12362684 "Sure. I found this for Canada: http://www.altusgroup.com/media/4099/costguide_2015_web.pdf http://www.altusgroup.com/media/4099/costguide_2015_web.pdf Toronto (average $/sq ft to build given range) Medium Quality Tract House (assume 1 story): 180 Medium Quality Highrise (50-80 stories, average 65 stories): 270 This comes out to $1.38 more per square foot for each additional story. Let's just assume land will be twice as expensive in the city center as at the edge of that metro. Assume the cheapest land is $200 per square foot. Assume that the house will be built on the cheaper land, and assume one dwelling per story for simplicity. As you add a story, the cost of land is halved. After adding the 65th story, it is divided 65 ways. By adding the linear curve of building cost over the inverse curve of cost of land divided by story, you get the cost per square foot per story. In fact, this is maximized for a single-story building as land costs are born by a single tenant. Cost per floor falls until construction costs overcome the falling cost of land. The minimum cost to add a story, $214.67 occurs for the 12th floor. Again, back of the napkin and very naive. A highrise will probably have less square footage per dwelling though. If we halve that the cost of land falls even faster, with building costs plus land costs bottoming out at $203.51 per square foot, for the 8th floor. Finally, I added an $8,000 per square foot premium at city center. With this, the cheapest floor costs $348.44 per square foot for the sixth floor. So as land prices become steeper from city center to periphery, it actually makes more sense to disperse. Likewise reducing dwelling size does not have as much of an effect as rising build costs." More than happy if someone can poke holes in it, but my takeaway was that costs are minimized at lower density rates than I first assumed. Mid-rise buildings are the most cost-effective, moreso than high-rises. I'm glad that the BuildZoom study confirmed my exercise somewhat, but it's still disappointing that sprawl seems to be the best way to make housing affordable.