I'm afraid you're wrong: there are many, MANY supply and demand denialists around, who think it doesn't apply to housing. Believe me, I've argued with them. They see that brand new housing is more expensive than the decades-old housing it replaced, and go, "See?? It didn't help the prices at all!"
> Zoning regulations aren't usually arbitrary
True, in many cases they were designed to keep out undesirables, like people who are poor, or non-white. That's not arbitrary, it's intentionally bigoted.
Nobody's suggesting dumping factories into residential areas, or relaxing basic safety standards. That type of zoning is absolutely fine.
The biggest reason is political, that people have NIMBY tendencies: yes there needs to be more housing somewhere, but put it somewhere else please. I don't want to have to worry about parking or see unsightly apartments on my block.
I don't dispute that infrastructure is a concern, but it's not a blocker. Cities growing quickly isn't some unfathomable phenomenon of the 21st century, the logistics can be handled if people want it politically.
and, i've never understood why people ALWAYS assume that a new apartment building will be unsightly. There's just this general attitude of "any kind of building, any kind of development" is bad development. It's really crazying coming from a country that wants economic development so badly.
There's so much economic development that could happen if we simply allowed builders to build the housing that people so desperately need. its win win.
It is a petty objection compared to the stakes but ugliness and beauty aren't in isolation. Take a beautiful Mediterranean Villa and plop it down in the middle of a colonial historic district and it will clash despite both being considered beautiful on their own.
By definition new apartments in a less dense area will have to stand out and the transitioning will result in either clashing. The alternative is they do it in a big wave and say buy out a small neighborhood cul de sac and turn them into apartments. It wouldn't clash any more even if they went with something downright garish but the big changes like that also upset people as they find it jarring.
To be fair, in the US at least, most apartment blocks are kind of ugly compared to most single family homes. Living in Munich now, they're much more attractive on average.
>I'm afraid you're wrong: there are many, MANY supply and demand denialists around, who think it doesn't apply to housing.
Are they really in denial though, I mean many want the housing prices to go up because it means their housing ( asset ) increases as well. So there is clearly a conflict of interest.
I think that's a different category of people, those who understand quite well that supply and demand applies here, and for that reason don't want more supply, to enrich themselves.
There's definitely a grouping of people who just think adding more housing doesn't help lower prices.
> Zoning regulations aren't usually arbitrary
True, in many cases they were designed to keep out undesirables, like people who are poor, or non-white. That's not arbitrary, it's intentionally bigoted.
Nobody's suggesting dumping factories into residential areas, or relaxing basic safety standards. That type of zoning is absolutely fine.
The biggest reason is political, that people have NIMBY tendencies: yes there needs to be more housing somewhere, but put it somewhere else please. I don't want to have to worry about parking or see unsightly apartments on my block.
I don't dispute that infrastructure is a concern, but it's not a blocker. Cities growing quickly isn't some unfathomable phenomenon of the 21st century, the logistics can be handled if people want it politically.