Change My Mind: Density Increases Local But Decreases Global Prices

A 'Change My Mind' post (with a prominent UPDATE at the top where Scott now thinks it's an oversimplification and the effect is slow/inconsistent enough to ignore) arguing, contra Yglesias, that building housing in ONE city can raise THAT city's prices even though building everywhere lowers prices everywhere. The tails argument: the densest US cities (NYC, SF) are the most expensive, and a giant empty North Dakota plain is the cheapest -- so moving along the density spectrum raises prices via induced demand (a pool of geographically-mobile Americans who want big-city life floods in faster than supply rises, in current pent-up-demand conditions). It's not a perpetual-motion machine (it exhausts once big-city prices equal everywhere else) and doesn't violate supply/demand (building in Oakland lowers prices everywhere EXCEPT Oakland, by diverting would-be NYC/SF movers). Frames it as a coordination problem: all cities upzoning together get lower prices; each can minimize its own by defecting -- a case for state-level (Newsom) intervention.

Quality 67 · Strong. Strong/Solid edge. A clever, provocative econ argument (the induced-demand-at-the-tails reasoning and the coordination-problem framing are sharp), but short, explicitly provisional, and -- per Scott's own top-of-post UPDATE -- substantially walked back. Low-Strong.

Claude’s paradigm shift 45 · Moderate. Moderate. The local-prices-rise-but-global-prices-fall / induced-demand framing is a fresh angle on the YIMBY debate, though Scott himself retracts much of it.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. Minor. Within the housing-policy/YIMBY discourse; no material reach. 2.