It's easy to blame politics, but those politics are based in social reality.
"Keeping the costs sane" for tech workers would mean putting the housing out of reach of many ordinary people.
There is a finite amount of space, and the reason why housing scarce in many cities in Europe is because a large portion is reserved for rent controlled social housing (which unlike the US isn't just the extreme low end).
Not doing that clearly doesn't work either (see SF), and has so many negative social side-effects that are unacceptable in Europe, so you don't even have to bother trying to suggest it.
It simply comes down to too many people wanting to live where there's not enough space. To solve that, you have to look at social factors, not bureaucracy and real estate.
Personally I would suggest looking at the people who actually wouldn't mind getting out of those cities but currently can't for various social and economic reasons. Ironically, those are not the tech workers who could at least theoretically work remotely.
"It simply comes down to too many people wanting to live where there's not enough space"
No, I really don't think that is what it comes down to in Europe (maybe ex UK). More often than not, the reason why local authorities are planning for say 15,000 new homes instead of 30,000 new homes per year is funding not space. Not just funding for housing, but also for public transport, etc.
People in continental Europe will happily live in large appartment blocks if rents are affordable. You can easily buy a couple of single family homes in a sparsely populated area next to a big city and build 10 storeys high, or revitalize some brown field estate that is already owned by the government.
But as you correctly point out, housing in (contintental) Europe is typically subsidized, even for medium income folks. If a city is growing fast, building new homes has to be subsidized now but tax revenues are only going to come in later.
So we have three options: Raise taxes, increase government debt or deregulate to attract private investment. If you have a choice of public or private investment, which one do you choose? I think the answer depends on whether or not you know exactly how much demand there is for what type of supply and on how transparent and competent the local government is.
The demand for housing is pretty well known. We don't need much innovation in that sector. There is not a lot of uncertainty about what is required. All we need is money to build build build.
In my opinion, if national governments that can borrow for 1% they should take the opportunity to raise debt, tons of it, and fund housing and other infrastructures now. Or even better, introduce European infrastructure bonds to raise that money, so it can be spent in countries with higher interest rates as well.
Not to discard your comment, but wrt Stockholm: Build higher! Urbanize areas outside of the core inner city. Lots to do in planning and building to not create artificial social policy.
Has been done in many European cities in the 60's and 70's. Those are now places nobody wants to live anymore, and many of them have been torn down.
The only people who want to live "higher" are the people who want high end apartments in the inner city. And those are the places where height restrictions are there to protect the historical nature of the inner city.
I think it's a mistake to compare Le Corbusier-style "areas for living" with modern urbanised zones. The big issue there is that – sure – there's highrises, but no urbanisation. Usually because they are either lacking commercial space on ground floors or the density is too low, on aggregate, or the areas are too spaced out to support vibrant commercial centers. Look at stockholm, you have city, greenery, suburb, greenery, suburb. No urban connection, not enough density.
I've lived in areas like this myself, and I agree they're not nice. However, I have to think it's not only locality to city center that makes central areas good, it's also that they are self sustaining burrows. There's ample housing, parks, jobs, retail, restaurants, bars, etc.
This has been discussed at length on HN and elsewhere, but there definitely is a real estate problem in SF. Average height of buildings in the downtown area and the like are _much_ lower than they could be (earthquake arguments are bunk, see Tokyo).
The politics behind this is absolutely terrible zoning regulations in the US that make mixed-use zoning difficult, and the fact that people own their houses, and don't want to see the value go down. So basically rent seekers.
"Keeping the costs sane" for tech workers would mean putting the housing out of reach of many ordinary people.
There is a finite amount of space, and the reason why housing scarce in many cities in Europe is because a large portion is reserved for rent controlled social housing (which unlike the US isn't just the extreme low end).
Not doing that clearly doesn't work either (see SF), and has so many negative social side-effects that are unacceptable in Europe, so you don't even have to bother trying to suggest it.
It simply comes down to too many people wanting to live where there's not enough space. To solve that, you have to look at social factors, not bureaucracy and real estate.
Personally I would suggest looking at the people who actually wouldn't mind getting out of those cities but currently can't for various social and economic reasons. Ironically, those are not the tech workers who could at least theoretically work remotely.