But land is not where people live. Buildings are. Buildings which can be built higher. Building materials are global commodities. So why doesn’t the US just bui

But land is not where people live. Buildings are. Buildings which can be built higher. Building materials are global commodities. So why doesn’t the US just build more stories than India if the land is more expensive but the commodities to build buildings, relative to cost of land, are cheaper? Answer: zoning codes, “local control,” and regulations. (Also, the land density per person is actually MUCH higher in India than the US, over an order of magnitude higher, which OUGHT to bid up the price of land even more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... ) The reality is we make it illegal to be poor, whether intentional or not. And then put meanstesting in social programs to target them, which has the perverse effect of making it harder for those who are poorest (ie least able to navigate bureaucracy) to get access to them. And as far as ideology, both the left and the right seem to conspire to make this happen. It’s worse in cities than rural area due to obvious reasons, but within a city itself, both the mainstream left and mainstream right seem to back the regulations that make it illegal to be poor.