If density is the key to housing affordability, how is it that New York and San Francisco — two of the densest cities in the United States — are also the most expensive? We’ve also seen this question asked in Canada about Vancouver but we’re going to focus on the US in this video.

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References:

Median build date of homes in NYC and SF: https://censusreporter.org/data/table/?table=B25035&geo_ids=16000US3651000,16000US0667000&primary_geo_id=16000US3651000 40% of Manhattan buildings would be illegal today: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html San Francisco buildings that would be illegal to build today: https://sfzoning.deapthoughts.com/illegal_homes.html SF 1978 downzoning: https://x.com/enf/status/999030803609899013 Why is Manhattan so expensive? https://manhattan.institute/article/why-is-manhattan-so-expensive Wharton Land Use Regulation Index: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26573/w26573.pdf Zillow rent data: https://www.zillow.com/research/data/ Building permits data: https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/current.html Rental vacancy data: https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/prevann.html Wharton Survey: https://real-faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/~gyourko/WRLURI/GyourkoHartleyKrimmel_NBERw26573appendix.pdf Housing supply elasticity: https://localinannarbor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/the-quarterly-journal-of-economics-2010-saiz-1253-96.pdf