[blyry]

> results in the construction of “luxury” housing instead of “affordable” housing

I'm really hung up on the quotes here. Isn't this because the market rate is currently distorted by the preexisting lack of supply though? So a developer isn't actually building 'reasonable' apartments with a level of furnish that is 'affordable', they've got granite (sorry quartz, granite is out!) countertops and heated tile floors because they can capture more rent than the cost that way?

I'm curious to what extent this is due to market distortion via governmental policies, or just developers/capitalism 'spying' a neighborhood near the end of it's natural lifecycle.

[nerfhammer]

So there's the argument that all housing that is affordable now was luxury when it was new. New is at least somewhat inherently luxury.

Banning such would be like banning new cars to keep the price of cars down

[blyry]

That makes sense and is a perfect analogy. I was talking about the used car market with friends a few days ago, and we discussed exactly that: the used car market is gentrifying because the insane price of new cars today is slowly but surely reducing the supply of good-condition used cars! I don't have data to back that up, but that was the lunchtime theory, and if you've tried to buy a good condition used truck recently I think there's at least some basis in fact.