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> You're saying that increasing supply (all else being equal) will increase prices? Yep. Exactly. With the caveat: the increase happens by increasing the _dens
by cyberax 1y ago
> You're saying that increasing supply (all else being equal) will increase prices?
Yep. Exactly. With the caveat: the increase happens by increasing the _density_.
> Seems like that turns standard econ on its head, so can you help me understand who you reached that conclusion?
Here's another example. Suppose you give a billion dollars to everyone. Will everyone just become rich?
Housing is similar. When you build denser housing, it increases the attractiveness of the area for employers. They get access to a larger labor pool, so companies near dense housing are long-term more competitive.
This in turn increases the housing price, as workers want to live closer to employers.
Rinse, wash, repeat.
The end result: no large city managed to lower down housing costs by increasing density. It's a simple verifiable fact.
Edit: I checked data for Western Europe, Russia, US, Japan. It's possible that some citi in India or Malaysia managed to do that. But I don't have data for them.
- pcaharrier 1y agoI see what you're saying: all else will not remain equal. Your argument is that any increase in supply will always be more than offset by a corresponding increase in demand.
- cyberax 1y agoThat is correct. An abstract spherical city in vacuum might be able to lower prices by building more. Or it's possible in a fantasy scenario where you suddenly drop a million housing units onto a city from orbit. But cities don't exist in vacuum. And building new housing is always slow, so you can feasibly grow housing stock in a large city only by single-digit percentages YoY.