An interesting perspective that I’ve never considered. Thanks for sharing, Philip. When traveling abroad in my youth, I’d always been struck by the ridiculously high cost of living in many urban cities, especially London. Rent in New York and other U.S. cities was always high, but never insanely high. I lived in Chelsea (the lower West side of Manhattan) right after college and with a meager income was able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment with a roommate. I wonder how many college graduates today could afford the same apartment?

The “extractive” theory goes a long way toward explaining how and why this is happening. Since building more “affordable” housing clearly hasn’t done anything to reduce the impact of this crisis, what do you see as the solution?