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This is really interesting to see! Someone linked me here from Matthew Yglesias's Substack.

I like the comparison of new housing construction to current population, but I think there might be some other things that are illuminated by comparing new housing construction to population growth. Someone noted that Austin has a high per capita housing construction rate, and said that this can't explain why housing prices are rising in Austin, but I compared it to Austin's growth rate (https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22926/austin/population) and it looks like until 2020, Austin was always increasing its housing stock at a lower rate than it was increasing its population. If it's easy to do a systematic comparison of new housing construction to population growth, I bet that would reveal some interesting things (including why Minneapolis is permitting so many houses compared to other Midwestern cities, and why Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are so low).

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Wow this was great

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Thank you for this detailed overview. It helps dispel some popular two popular myths about the state of American housing. The first myth is that multifamily projects are the solution to housing demand. The other myth is that regulation is strangling housing production. Regulatory constraints are a significant factor in some popular metro areas, but production rates are almost back at trend levels if we look at the nation as a whole. The investigation of land use regulations is the subject for a few dozen more articles.

What's fascinating is your observation about geography and how the flat, unconstrained landscapes of Southern and Southwestern metro areas are conducive to lateral development. The Northeast has few areas close to established cities that are easy to build on---and local politics are aligned against changes to infrastructure or population density increases.

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Fascinating. Thank you!

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