[kmlevitt]

This is such a cop out response. Even if we want to pretend there are no other investments, the real question is why don’t we just upzone cities end build more housing instead of artificially constricting supply so the baby boomers can get rich off the younger generations.

[AmVess]

People don't want low end housing built in their neighborhoods.

Further, the cost of development has gone up rather drastically. In some cases, 10x in as many years, making building low cost homes financially impossible.

Then there's the issue with tax collectors (politicians) preferring to have expensive homes built instead of low cost housing so they can collect vastly more tax to spend on themselves.

[kmlevitt]

>People don't want low end housing built in their neighborhoods.

The problem with this reasoning is that housing has gotten so expensive in many cities that anything that costs less than $750,000 can be considered "low end".

Polls show that most people want more housing built. The problem is homeowners don't want it built in their neighborhood. Everyone wants to pass the buck to somewhere else.

That's why it's no longer possible for residential zoning to be determined on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. States have to step up and come up with minimum zoning that reflects the state's larger interests rather than letting every block fight to "preserve" a historic gas station etc.

[kiratp]

Because the boomers vote and the younger generations do not.

[kmlevitt]

Only now are we starting to see actual democratic referendums on these topics. For a long time everybody was brainwashed into thinking more construction = “greedy developers”, so nobody treated adding to supply as a possible solution.

But the tide is starting to turn, and in a lot of state/provinces you are starting to see real change it last. British Columbia will soon up zone province-wide for example. And slowly you are starting to see some good initiatives passing in California.

[dvsfish]

In the context of Australia, voting is mandatory if you're >=18yo.

We also have very unusual tax laws around owning a rental called negative gearing- if you're a landlord and your rental property earns less than it costs to run it, you can subtract the difference from your taxable income and pay less tax, as if having a tenant pay off most of your mortgage wasn't enough of a free lunch.

A political contest vowing to get rid of this nonsense was annihilated when we tried it one election cycle around a decade ago.