One misconception is that real estate prices have something to do with a robust economy or value-driven demand. Those are, at most, 5% of the picture. 95% of it

One misconception is that real estate prices have something to do with a robust economy or value-driven demand. Those are, at most, 5% of the picture. 95% of it is regulatory corruption and the legacy cruft it generates. Even good land-reform programs get abused (cf. NYC's 1947 legacy rent control, many of whose beneficiaries today are upper-middle-class transplants who stalked obituaries and paid "key money" to a dead person's out-of-city children to get an arrangement literally better than ownership). That's why Luanda and Moscow are more expensive than New York. Real estate demand is extremely price-inelastic, which is why a disaster that destroys 5% of supply would actually double (at least) the supposed "value" of the remaining land. Regulatory corruption often has the same supply-destructive effects. High rent is an undesirable (and, one hopes, temporary) byproduct of urban health, but not a real correlate because its long-term effects are disastrous.