I live in a former socialist country (slovenia, then yugoslavia), where housing went from something cheap, something you got for free from the government, or (l

I live in a former socialist country (slovenia, then yugoslavia), where housing went from something cheap, something you got for free from the government, or (literally) built yourself over the weekends to something that is not affordable at all. Our current left parties blame the government not building enough housing, even though every government project is vastly overpaid (due to corruption). But the real reason for pricing increases is regulation. Back in the time you could buy a plot of land and build. Usually you started building first, then dealt with the papers, permits and all the related stuff... and people knew where the papers won't be problematic, and build housing on plots that were actually ok to build on. In every village, you could buy a plot of land at the edge of it, and just make a house there. You could also literally build the house yourself... usually yu hired someone to dig out the basement, but a lot of the actual work was done by future-owners themselves and their friends. Yes, some houses didn't have proper insulation, or stuff like that, but you had a place to live in. And now? Usually those same villages are the same size as they were before the breakup of yugoslavia, because you need a permit to start anything (and they're actually enforced), and local governments don't want to change zoning, because of NIMBY neighbours. You can't build/do anything by yourself anymore. We have huge areas of buildable land, empty, and in many places, the only way to build something is to buy an existing old house, tear it down, and build a multi-apartment building there, bringing the prices even higher. Add to this speculative investments and buying dedicated apartments/houses for airbnb, and the young(er) generations are fucked. (I'm not saying we should allow everything everywhere, but in places with not enough housing but enough land, we should rethink our zoning)