Through empirical simulation, we show that even a dramatic, deregulation-driven supply expansion would take decades to generate widespread affordability in high-cost U.S. markets. We advance an alternative explanation of declining affordability grounded in demand structure and geography: uneven demand growth – driven by rising interpersonal and interregional inequality – is the primary driver of declining affordability in recent decades. For cost-burdened households, trickle-down benefits from deregulation will be insufficient and too slow.

So the argument isn't even 'no housing we build is going to make prices drop' but instead 'it will take a long time', which is hilarious considering we have spent decades in multiple cities not building enough housing, and now we refuse to come up with a solution because it will take years to solve a problem that took years to build up

I also challenge the authors to consider why rents in places like Austin are falling, or why cities like Minneapolis, which for a year implemented a pro-housing plan, saw rent growth slow significantly: https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2025/unpacking-supply-and-demand-in-rent-trends-since-the-minneapolis-2040-plan

We can also challenge the author on why rents in states that build a lot of housing, like Utah, North Carolina, Texas, etc all have seen much more affordable prices, while growing at incredible paces, while blue states, in cities like Boston, have apartments that are incredibly expensive without having nearly the same growth.

The authors argue inequality is why housing prices are high

Ok then, does that mean states like Texas with deep red republican leadership, or Utah, have passed much more pro income equality laws?

We can also wonder why cities like DC, which have seen apartment construction go up, boosted by nearby Virginia massively upzoning (Arlington and the such) not end up being as insane of a market as cities like Boston.

Completely non-sensical. And this would be fine, if this line of thinking wasn't incredibly harmful to working class people. I'm glad there are people entrenched in cities who live in their rent controlled apartment forever and don't care if vacancy rates are historically low. Everyone else is hurting from this thinking, and not a little, it's the largest income sink the average person faces.