More people getting to live in big cities with lots of job opportunities is a good thing, *even if* rents don’t go down (which they will, if you build enough).
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I contacted Dr Beaudry to see if he will provide some context for his statement. I think there are various plausible explanations, none of which support the idea of not increasing density.
Here's what he said: "As explained in the attached paper, we are not talking about inverted law of supply and demand. Instead we are taking mobility decisions across cities seriously. 1/3
If we focus on increasing supply only in our big cities, then more density will lead to more people in our big cities with little effect on prices. For there to be a decrease in prices in our big cities, we need to make it unattractive for others to move there as we allow for more building. 2/3
I believe rents *are* going down in some markets -- save for 2- and 3-bedroom units -- due to increased supply (we're renters fwiw). Here in Victoria there are more vacancy listings as well.
World population will peak in about 60 years, we *SHOULD* build homes for those expected additional 2 Billion people. These are children who have not yet been born... however** we are past peak child... it's old people *like them* who are causing population growth by having longer life expectancies.
Also, America specifically is still urbanizing. Even without a change in household size or count, we’d need a ton of new units in places with jobs and desirable amenities.
We need to find a way to synthesize the “if building more housing doesn’t lower prices, you just invented an infinite wealth machine,” argument into something normies can grok.
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https://cdhowe.org/publication/making-housing-more-affordable-in-canada-the-need-for-more-large-cities/