IMO, this is largely because the government's job is to stay out of the way, and people who hold elected office in areas where this is a problem (the Northeast Corridor and West coast generally), mostly have a certain something in common that indicates they are likely to think they need to "help" the market along.

It's not a coincidence that the "housing crisis" continues unabated in places like NYC that are losing population, yet appears to be solved in areas in the south that are absorbing those people.

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GN0515 3 days ago | parent [-]

Does this not have more to do with desirability? It's kind of hard to compare property prices in NYC with Alabama. Like no shit housing will be affordable in places that, no offense, are kind of a shit hole. In Canada, housing prices are crazy in beautiful in beautiful Vancouver, but are totally "affordable" in the arctic circle. It has nothing to do with legislation.

	▲	forgotaccount3 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Does this not have more to do with desirability? Not really. NYC population still hasn't fully recovered to the pre-covid peak: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYPOP NYC is losing it's share of the global finance jobs as firms shift staffing to other, more desirable locations: https://pix11.com/news/local-news/nyc-job-market-loses-thous... NYC rent being unaffordable is due to legislation that keeps apartments off of the market due to not being financially viable to repair to habitable standards in addition to legislation overly empowering local groups to block new construction.
	▲	bpt3 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Housing prices represent a tradeoff between affordability and desirability in most cases (with a major aspect of desirability being access to desirable employment). It's not hard at all to compare property prices in NYC to Alabama using a cost of living index (and to some extent a quality of life index, though these are fairly subjective). People are voting with their feet every day, and they largely aren't moving because they are looking for a decrease in their standard of living. Many, many, many people think NYC, SF, Vancouver etc. are shitholes. The good news is that people are currently allowed to choose where their surroundings look like, though many politicians and bureaucrats seem hell-bent on changing that. And now we're back at the start of this discussion...
	▲	nradov 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That's funny because a lot of people in Huntsville, AL would consider San Francisco, CA to be a literal shit hole. And yet SF real estate prices are much higher. It turns out there are many factors: local government development policies, weather, jobs, geography, etc. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-dow...