An important paragraph on cities and housing

Adam Hengels at Market Urbanism:

Supply really must be part of the whole story.  A city is only affordable to the number of residents it houses affordably. Failure to recognize this only shifts the burden from one demographic to another. (and it won’t be the rich who pays the price)  If a zoning-plagued city fails to provide 1,000 units demanded, 1,000 people can no longer afford to live there.  Even if that city chose to subsidize housing for 2,000 people at 50-80% of AMI, that doesn’t change the fact that 1,000 people who wanted to live in that city must leave.  Any viable solution (free-market or otherwise) must involve increasing supply significantly, either through creating supply directly or subsidizing demand through vouchers, which induces new development.  But, this simply can’t happen if overall supply is capped through zoning.