Vienna is highly unusual because about 100 years ago, they built massive social housing projects and then the population peaked, declined precipitously, and has

Vienna is highly unusual because about 100 years ago, they built massive social housing projects and then the population peaked, declined precipitously, and has still not reached its former peak. Recent construction hasn't caught up with population growth so it's not a given that they will be a great example in a few decades. To be fair, the Viennese government is much more serious about building than other governments; for example, they have large amounts of buildable land "banked" for future construction [0] [1] so we shall see. But even looking at Vienna, it's obvious that the answer to affordable housing is to build more housing. It doesn't matter who builds or who owns it. It could be a corporation building Levittown. It could be the SPÖ building the 1.1km long Karl-Marx Hof. It could be Khrushchev building Khrushchevkas. And it doesn't even have to be ugly (on the subject of Vienna, see the George-Washington-Hof.) But you do have to build, more or less continuously, and if you don't you better have a large building boom to make up for it. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-soc... [1] https://www.wohnfonds.wien.at/english_information https://www.wohnfonds.wien.at/english_information