I generally agree, but for "products" like housing there are too many interfering influences to really sit back and say well the market will take care of it. Th

I generally agree, but for "products" like housing there are too many interfering influences to really sit back and say well the market will take care of it. The government gives enormous subsidizes to road and highway construction, for example, think about lending regulations, zoning rules, hook ups for city utilities, etc.. That's not much of "allowing the market to work". I don't think it's fair to say when housing is built in one way it is the free market at work but when it's built in a different way it's all government regulations. We often times think of zoning being restricted in cities, but it's arguably more restrictive outside of cities. Notice how everything that is built is the exact same spread out suburban lots, with no mixed use development, giant highways, giant parking lots, Wal-Marts, Starbucks, and other developments? Is there a single developer in the United States that's building differently en masse? My wife and I live in a historic neighborhood close to downtown Columbus. There are bars and restaurants and shops nearby, a park in the middle, etc. The home prices here are quite substantial because it's a nice, charming village within an urban environment. Though it's not the only one. People move here and pay large sums of money to live here. Clearly it's worth a lot right? So why don't developers build more developments like this when there's such high demand and prices command such a premium? One could build the homes a little closer together, make the streets a little more narrow, add buildings and churches and market stalls within. The economic value is clearly demonstrated. What's the barrier? Where you are concerned about letting market forces go to work I agree, one way to do that is to stop subsidizing a specific development pattern.