Comment by mancerayder

California problem. There's no constrained supply in Houston or Austin or a few other cities in the US that are now crashing from over supply.

Another one is Manhattan. There's no space to build so things get retrofitted (office conversions) and new zoning (Hudson Yards) but it's expensive - high hourly rates to pay people on buildings with more 99 units, many many permits required, land is expensive, etc

So it's luxury only in NYC

None of this is NIMBYism.

Part of it is return to office. Why move there if it's too expensive - the answer is you're unemployed otherwise

Part of it is demand. NYC is the closest thing to Europe, where you don't drive around in an SUV to do simple things. The GDP is enormous, so you find jobs. Young people. Etc

Housing costs are a lot more complicated than NIMBYism. There's a strong California bias for obvious reasons, here on HN.