> For one, the engineer in India doesn't drive the demand for housing in Seattle thus keeping it more reasonably (less insanely) priced.

I urge you to understand that housing prices in Seattle are largely driven by supply inelasticity, more than anything.

If the premise was true, we'd have seen large drops in rent/home prices after mass layoffs (we didn't).

Also, it would be hard to explain the prices finally falling in Seattle for the last few months, which aligned perfectly with the largest supply since Feb 2014.

The engineer does marginally increase housing demand. They also increase local and federal tax revenue to support education, healthcare and other services. And the engineer will spend a large portion of their salary in the local economy, helping to support all the other business in Seattle. So there are also positive externalities.

What are some of the other "many negative externalities" you mention?

I feel like we could have the best of everything if you we just built more housing to keep up with demand.

The engineer in India also doesn’t drive demand for managers and product teams and ops people and HR and payroll staff and canteen workers and office space construction and highways and education spending in the US. All that happens in Chennai instead.

Housing is not a finite resource. Not building more housing is a choice.

But look at the other side. An engineer living in Seattle pays taxes and contributes to the economy. Seattle loses that benefits if that same job moves to India.

So, I am not sure if that housing argument alone makes that a better outcome for America (and workers).