This is really one of the core 'hidden' costs. Apartments are almost universally owned by some large real estate developer like Greystar and they all share the

This is really one of the core 'hidden' costs. Apartments are almost universally owned by some large real estate developer like Greystar and they all share the same pricing scheme. When I lived in Austin during COVID my rent spiked by around 40%, despite nothing else changing. The area wasn't being built up, it was nowhere near the core of Austin. So apartment prices are way above what they actually should be, and companies will gladly hold onto empty apartments in order to artificially raise prices according to their internal pricing algorithm. This in turn has massive downstream effects for how close people can live to work, how much money is spent on gas or maintenance and general earnings. There's also the rising cost of food, the gutting and destruction of local businesses (see: Bartell's Drugs) and so forth.