>In a lot of ways I think the cost of housing is dependent on the housing density vs job density of the area. If job density is much higher than the housing den

>In a lot of ways I think the cost of housing is dependent on the housing density vs job density of the area. If job density is much higher than the housing density, then the price of housing goes up by a lot. The cost of housing is dependent on job density * quality only to the point what people are able to pay, and then rest is what they are willing to pay. A lot of people buy/rent slightly above their means if they are willing to pay it. Housing price is like an auction house so willing to pay is a bigger factor than able to. Artificially reducing number of available houses comes in a lot of reasons/pretense but in the end its just a result of people seeing/forced to see their house as an asset; You acquired your house at price X at auction. A local urban developer want to build 100 more units close to you, from prediction of demand and would be profitable at price X (or even <X), so you passively/actively work against that proposal, tell the developer that he can build up to 90 more units, so price of your estate increase X+N. Now the next 90 buyers that bought the house have a reason to keep the price of estate above X+N, tell the developer that he can only make 80 units. Rinse and repeat.