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The US is nowhere near the point where population density/pressure is an explanation for the affordability problem. Outside of NYC and Chicago there are very fe
by twblalock 4y ago
The US is nowhere near the point where population density/pressure is an explanation for the affordability problem. Outside of NYC and Chicago there are very few parts of the country as dense as anything in Europe.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoBut it doesn't matter, the patterns are already set where it makes it incredibly difficult to change some existing "non dense housing" in the US. E.g. look at Austin TX, it's housing prices have skyrocketed in the past 5-10 years. It's not particularly dense, but the vast majority of the existing housing stock is typical single family homes - there are very few open tracks of land where you can just build dense housing. So to increase density, you have to change existing neighborhoods to be more dense, and I'm not sure I've ever seen folks that I previously thought of as rational, compassionate individuals fight tooth and nail over even modest increases in density.