Taylor Swift (and other super stars) don't play shows in 99% of American municipalities.

Companies want top talent for their workforce. They naturally will set up shop where they have easiest access to this talent (hence why you get industry hubs in different locales). The companies move to the spots for workers, and the works move to those spots for the jobs.

Yep, and these changes take place for reasons. For example, California and the Bay area have had 40 years of opportunity to make it easier to build, and ample people willing to pay.

There's an alternative world where SF and San Jose look like Singapore or Hong Kong, and policy is one of the big differences

Even worse, a lot of municipalities are losing population. But no-one wants to drop everything in their lives and move to a dying city, specially not high intelligence individuals who tend to gather causing home prices to skyrocket. Worse, those individuals tend not to buy into the types of housing typically seen by large developers building "relief" housing.

Analogies are always bad, but in this case, I would say that if I wanted to walk to see Taylor Swift within 15 minutes, then most municipalities are at this capacity.