People are quick to point out that induced demand exists - especially people that aren't fond of change.

Very broadly speaking, people mis-estimate effect sizes in economics by orders of magnitude. Induced demand is just their foothold to claim an effect exists, before they go about claiming the effect size they want to see.

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bombcar 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I love induced demand. I'm going to use it to get rich - buy up some abandoned town somewhere, and then pay to run a 100 lane superhighway to it; induced demand means the town will fill up instantly and be hugely valuable!

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seanmcdirmid 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It doesn’t work unless there is currently repressed demand for living in that abandoned town because not enough housing or other factors.

No one is complaining about a housing shortage today in buffalo which used to have twice as much housing stock as it does today, because the demand simply isn’t there now.

	▲	bombcar 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly - induced demand is just a misnomer/misunderstanding. "Pent-up demand" would be a much better way to explain it - but that would reveal that at some point the demand ceases; even SF has some limit - once all 12 billion people live there, demand will level off.

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trollbridge 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Good analogy. I've always considered induced demand a bit of a fantasy.

New businesses the sprout up that market themselves certainly induce a bit of demand, but more lanes and stoplights doesn't exactly motivate people to want to go somewhere.