alt Hacker NewsIt’s self reinforcing. When demand is highest, building will be highest, and median unit size will increase more rapidly, allowing more building, allowing more units.
The pace is limited, but the URBAN output increases exponentially, which is exactly what we want.
I wish it worked that way, but from my nearly 20 years of urban land use policy study and writing, I have seen tons of evidence that it does not.
The problem is that the most in demand areas get new buildings at 4-6 stories, and then you get locked up - the airspace above them becomes unavailable for 50-100 years, when there was market demand for some taller buildings from the beginning. It's the same "push down and spread out" that causes sprawl, just more localized.