[jumhyn]

But this doesn’t offer any justification for why, for locations that people highly value living in, we as a society ought to do anything other than maximize the number of people living there.

[happytoexplain]

You shouldn't maximize the number of people anywhere - it creates sadness and kills communities. It's also not the only solution.

[jumhyn]

Sure, but it is an option (as well as everywhere along the spectrum up to maximization), and so ‘people want to move there’ is not on its own a justification for ‘prices must go up’.