[ultraluminous]

Yup. Essentially, housing is an in-elastic demand, and livable land is a finite resource, further exacerbated by the realities of emigration. Combined with extreme wealth inequality, it brings us to this type of dystopia - https://ssir.org/articles/entry/tackling_the_housing_crisis_...

[fleddr]

I agree that livable land is finite, but far from scarce. The US has an enormous supply of livable land, it's just that everybody clusters into hot zones. It's obviously not easy to break that pattern, but I consider it the only real solution.

[maxerickson]

Yeah, the US is at a point where there is a lot of built environment that is underutilized because job opportunities are concentrated in other places, never mind the large amount of land that can readily be developed.