It doesn't sound like you're familiar with the area. Seattle is geographically constrained and there was already no empty land available for development in 2010 when the latest surge of new residents began. We can only accommodate new people by tearing down structures that already exist and replacing them with denser structures.
> This likely points to slow bureaucracies or people fighting change or growth at all costs.
There are NIMBY elements here, but the city hasn't been shying away from development. It's a completely different story up here than compared to San Francisco. Take a look at the city skyline from 2010 to 2020 -- it's completely different.
But there hasn't just been development in the downtown core. In 2017, the city council approved major upzoning changes in 27 neighborhoods across the city. It was passed unanimously. Lots of single-family housing zoning went away and tons of construction has followed, but it can't keep pace with new arrivals.
In areas where single-family housing still exists, the city changed zoning laws to allow backyard ADUs. The number of backyard cottages exploded and many of them are being rented out.
Is the situation perfect? Absolutely not -- housing prices are still sky high. But it's a vastly different situation than the one you've dismissively alluded to.
Land utilization is always close to 100% in cities. It's a misnomer that cities can "run out of land". Cities go up, they increase density. If they can't go up, it is usually because of zoning restrictions. And that's a choice of local residents and authorities.
I don't think that's true at all. Do you have data to support it? Everything I've seen indicates that most large cities do have a significant percentage of vacant land ( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13574809.2016.11... ) and that cities like Seattle, SF, NYC, etc are indeed unique in their geographic constraints and total land utilization.
What I'm really talking about what I say "geographically constrained" is the elasticity of housing supply. Cities like Seattle, SF and NYC have less elastic housing supply in part because of their current land utilization and geographic constraints hemming in new development. That's a pretty well understood phenomenon.
How do you think NYC supports the population it does? Manhattan is not filled single dwelling houses, but at one time it was. It was much easier to build in NYC in the past than now. If they applied the same zoning restrictions then as SF does now, it never would have become the city that it is today.
> This likely points to slow bureaucracies or people fighting change or growth at all costs.
There are NIMBY elements here, but the city hasn't been shying away from development. It's a completely different story up here than compared to San Francisco. Take a look at the city skyline from 2010 to 2020 -- it's completely different.
But there hasn't just been development in the downtown core. In 2017, the city council approved major upzoning changes in 27 neighborhoods across the city. It was passed unanimously. Lots of single-family housing zoning went away and tons of construction has followed, but it can't keep pace with new arrivals.
In areas where single-family housing still exists, the city changed zoning laws to allow backyard ADUs. The number of backyard cottages exploded and many of them are being rented out.
Is the situation perfect? Absolutely not -- housing prices are still sky high. But it's a vastly different situation than the one you've dismissively alluded to.