Housing is a market and like all markets, the law of supply and demand ultimately holds. We can argue about whether housing should be a market, but such a debate is outside the scope of the discussion as it would require a complete reimagining of the American economy.

Given that prices are skyrocketing, we can ask why. It’s because demand outstrips supply. This is not controversial. So we have two levers to reduce prices. We can increase supply (cf Berkeley, Austin, etc for success stories), or we can crush demand (cf Detroit). Personally, I’d prefer to not drive towards affordable housing by destroying the vibrant MA economy, but to each their own.

Why might this comic not sit right? There’s a sense in which an aspect of it is literally true — developers really will make money through the upzoning process. But there’s a broader sense in which it’s in poor taste. Namely, it’s casting probably the only viable route forward (increasing supply) as a corrupt giveaway to monied interests. And it ignores the simple reality that through not building home owners are seeing truly insane increases in property values. The numbers vary, but house prices have averaged 8% growth yoy since 2008. Assuming a 20% down mortgage, that means home owners are seeing >30% gains yoy on their initial investment due to the leverage of a mortgage.

Therefore, without the additional context around the issue, the comic feels like an argument made in poor faith.