There is so much wrong with this article. Many of its key points are in plain contradiction with one another.

However, the piece’s central assertion that desirability and affordability are impossible to simultaneously attain is just as false. The author attempts to illustrate their point with circular reasoning in the linked quote, betraying its falsity.

The circularity occurs by first assuming that “desirability” solely drives prices and then using that to claim the only way New York can be made cheaper is to make it less desirable—like Detroit. The evocative picture justifies the assumption, in the author’s eyes, but both the assumption and the picture are wrong. Of course, economists have thought a lot about what determines prices. “Desirability”—demand—yes, but also supply.

So, make Detroit more like New York. More supply, more “desirable options” (economists would say a greater “quantity of demand”), and you get lower prices in aggregate across the two cities (when considering them in isolation).

Will some be priced out of Detroit? Sure, this is possible, though there is good research to suggest that the construction of new market-rate apartments drives prices down even in their immediate vicinity.

escholarship.org/conten….

Begging leftists to learn economics.