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It probably doesn't matter long term. Any growing city serious about affordable housing long term need to figure out how to develop new areas essentially indefinitely. Whether you look like Boston, Vancouver or Hong Kong is in reality less of an issue.

That Stockholm article is deceptive at best. The Stockholm housing market suffers above all else from lack of regulation of mortgages. The rental market simply can't compete with a 100 year double mortgage without default. The result being Sweden having among the highest amount of household debt of the OECD countries. Of course the head of the landlord lobby organization wants their members to be able to charge higher rents despite few rentals being built today when they are able to charge three times the rent of older rent controlled units. As most people simple can't afford them.

So where does "not rent control" work for long term affordable housing in in-demand areas? I don't think I know of any city comparable to Berlin, in at least size and prospects, that hasn't had significant rent increases in the last five years.

Unfortunately everything points to the effect being the opposite. Remote means you don't have to be in Detroit, but can contract a factory in China from New York or run a data center anywhere from the Bay Area.

That is what is curious. Something comically dysfunctional should be be absurd and outlandish but isn't. Saving 15 years for down payment so you can have some sort of cost control and housing stability in a modest apartment outside of a city is the reality, or even unattainable, for many people without assets today.

The curios thing about these anecdotes is that as dysfunctional as somewhere like the Soviet Union was, getting a affordable apartment in only 10 years would be a great deal for many today. In many metro areas property values have increased more the savings from the median income, meaning that the application, or aspiration, of the majority of people is going in reverse.