I don't understand what you're saying. First of all, no one is going to benefit if 25% of US population moves to NYC. Second, if we build millions of houses a

I don't understand what you're saying. First of all, no one is going to benefit if 25% of US population moves to NYC. Second, if we build millions of houses and they stay vacant, we just wasted a ton of money. Third, if we just give away all those houses for free, we're going to destroy the real estate market, which will have a cascading effect and cause a huge crisis in all sectors (and if you think that only billionaires will be affected, think harder). Fourth, due to misaligned incentives, governments are known to be way less efficient than private companies. So our best option is to be smart: build only so many houses to meet the demand and so that the utility they provide is roughly equal to their cost, and let private companies build those houses. Now we only need two things: a tool to measure the utility of something, and some incentives for private companies. I guess we all know where this is going.