Here's another perspective you might not be accounting for. Currently, people who work elite jobs tend to live around people with elite interests. If you're an upper class developer, you'll live in a neighborhood with other developers, lawyers, doctors, white-collar workers.
If somehow housing were made affordable everywhere, how would that pattern be maintained? By definition, there would be nothing stopping "Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel" (from The Simpsons) from moving to Mountain View, CA.
So you end up with a situation where elite software engineers are trying to sleep, because they have work tomorrow, and Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel is keeping them awake by blowing up fireworks or firing his shotgun at 2am. What recourse do you have? You can't kick Cletus out--that would violate all sorts of human rights and so on.
So when you look at it this way, higher price housing is almost inevitable. Before you can have any realistic hope of addressing it, you need to figure out what to do with Cletus!
Thanks for pointing out a motivation for density restrictions that isn't purely cartel-ish. I appreciate the perspective.
I'm not sure what to do about Cletus, to be honest. I'd like to say "enforce the laws about making tons of noise and discharging weapons" but I know that can be a fool's errand in some cases. After all, I was a loud student once.
Ultimately I think that neighborhoods near the core of cities need to grow (densify), as they did for most of history, and the existing homeowners can enjoy the consolation of watching their home become substantially more valuable as a result of somebody wanting to put 10 apartments there instead of one house. It's telling that in many places the most desirable neighbourhoods are the ones built _before_ current laws made them illegal.
'course, I just bought a house in the country, so we'll see how that goes.
Also, Cletus was a caricature... Poor people can be quiet and rich people can be loud.
I've spent a lot of time living in poorer areas and I can tell you from experience, noise ordinances are not effective. It'll take months or years for Cletus to work his way through the court system for noise pollution, and in the meantime, he's not going to be very happy with his neighbors for reporting him. You'd better hope he doesn't do something in retaliation! Oh, and while you're twiddling your thumbs waiting for his eviction, ten more will move in down the street. You know, because you magically made all the houses $40,000.
If somehow housing were made affordable everywhere, how would that pattern be maintained? By definition, there would be nothing stopping "Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel" (from The Simpsons) from moving to Mountain View, CA.
So you end up with a situation where elite software engineers are trying to sleep, because they have work tomorrow, and Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel is keeping them awake by blowing up fireworks or firing his shotgun at 2am. What recourse do you have? You can't kick Cletus out--that would violate all sorts of human rights and so on.
So when you look at it this way, higher price housing is almost inevitable. Before you can have any realistic hope of addressing it, you need to figure out what to do with Cletus!