I have nothing against public housing but I don't see how it would help solve this problem. Any land on which the city would build such housing would cost a for

I have nothing against public housing but I don't see how it would help solve this problem. Any land on which the city would build such housing would cost a fortune (whatever a private developer would pay) and the city would either have to charge the current market rate (minus some small subsidy) to make up for this, or rent the units at a huge loss. Given that there'd need to be a huge amount of such housing to have any noticeable effect on the market, you're proposing to completely bankrupt the city. Public housing can provide a nice subsidy for a small group of people at the bottom, but it can't be used on a giant scale to fix a failed market in which even wealthy tech workers can hardly afford a house. What's needed is to simply build more housing, and to make it cheaper for developers to do so (fewer permits, simpler processes) so that's it's actually economical to build non-luxury apartments.