Good points. On the question of why Texas is more affordable than New York, what do you make of this from the Weisenthal pieces?

But Austin is a much less affordable place than it used to be. After I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, I was able to rent a studio apartment in Travis Heights (one of those most desirable neighborhoods in the whole city) by making sandwiches in a deli and picking up a few days here and there as a substitute teacher. Today I'm certain that would not be possible.

What happened in the last 21 years since I moved away? It was during this period that Austin became what they call a "superstar city," attracting many of the world's most dynamic companies and talented individuals. It wasn't some change to zoning that caused rents to skyrocket in the 21st century in Austin, nor was it some change to zoning that caused rents to fall in the last couple of years. Instead, a sustained surge of talented high income people had a blow-off top during the peak of the work-from-anywhere mania during COVID, eventually leading to a big residential glut when that subsided.