I think that’s part of it, but a larger part–having been a local reporter–is that government is run by people trying to keep property values high. In cities, that’s real estate developers and landlords. In suburbs, it’s typical homeowners.

Most construction brings down property values: increase supply=lower demmand=lower prices. There is therefore a strong political will to oppose ALL new construction.

The second concern is: how do we keep poor people out? Things like minimal lot sizes are designed to keep the prices up and limit the amount of new citizens.

The third concern is: how can we spend the most of our money on OUR children’s education. Many suburbs are spiritually and economically designed to do ONE thing: get kids into good colleges. That means high property valuations across the board so the most money can go to individual children’s education. There are very many suburbs people don’t even move to UNLESS they’re having children, and they move out when they’re kids leave school.

If you build an apartment building in one of these suburbs and children start moving in, what happens? THe money from the rich houses is now diverted away from the rich children and towards the poor children, who are now paying much less in taxes.

I do like the oligopoly narrative, but we have to face that we are facing MASSIVE FAILURES on a social and political levels. Everybody is scrapping for themselves and building walls and pulling up ladders and basically being as self-interested me-and-mine as possible, at the same time money is becoming the dominant form of political activity with which the masses of regular people can not compete.