Obviously the extremes are stupid, but hey... Think about it - that works just as well if you take it to the extreme as "rebuild the entire city denser" - once

Obviously the extremes are stupid, but hey... Think about it - that works just as well if you take it to the extreme as "rebuild the entire city denser" - once you knock down the entire city, that land is gonna be worth a lot less. And the demolition approach has the advantage of costing less than rebuilding everything after you demo it! It's also a good way to force demand to move around, right?! Hell, if you demolished Manhattan and everyone there moved to other cities in the US, I wonder if the average rent and/or mortgage payments of the displaced people would go down...