Zoning-Caused Housing Shortage

The underlying issue is government preventing development of both houses and office space. If you were to build more housing in any capacity that would risk lowering housing values and people (including politicians) would lose tens or even hundreds of millions in assets. This would be incredibly unpopular and won't happen anytime soon

Ironically it's the government stepping in with regulation and zoning that is preventing people from building more housing (that low and middle income people can feasibly afford). The cost of building a new home on an empty piece of land can be astronomical and so builders would rather get the massive sums of initial capital from outside investors, build a luxury building for high income earners and cash out instead of using their own funds to build more modest homes for modest returns. The

So end zoning restrictions and build more. It’s just a supply issue. We haven’t sufficient housing for decades as demand has increased, pushing up prices. I think locals know exactly what they’re doing and are fine with it since their homes are likely a significant portion of their net worth.

Local control over zoning is a massive problem. Most people agree that building more homes would bring housing prices down. However, most cities have more than half of the land exclusively reserved for single family homes and have rules that prevent any creativity or density. They want other places to add the housing. I can't see the problems going away unless entire states reform zoning.

Cities often have policies that prevent private developers from building more housing.

housing shortage is a political will shortage (at least in USA with zoning laws)

There is no free market in housing. Supply is very tightly constrained by the city via a system of very stringent zoning (3 stories max most of the city, only 3% of the city is even zone for multifamily housing) and taxes. What you see happening in the Bay Area isn't the result of the laws of supply and demand, it's the result of the laws passed by city councils. There's no developer in the world who wouldn't love to build more housing in one of the most booming places in the

Maybe I’m naive, but isn’t this exactly the type of thing capitalism is good at doing (lowering prices)? My understanding is that greedy capitalists would love to build more, denser housing here in the Bay, but are unable to due to zoning restrictions as the parent comment suggested. Why isn’t this a problem capitalism can solve?

High housing prices (and resultant inequality and homelessness) is one example of a big problem that is caused primarily by local politics. There are no nationwide or statewide laws preventing the construction of sufficient housing to meet demand -- this is all city-level zoning problems caused by local NIMBYs.

It is a legal problem. 70% of my housing costs are due to land costs, construction and taxes accounting for the rest. When zoning prohibits dense building, everybody is forced to buy (or rent) more land than they need.