Reading this story about the Housing Crisis in the EU, I had an epiphany.  Along with many other analysts, I have attributed the lack of affordable housing to banking practices which have used real estate as an asset class and home ownership as a way to build and store wealth, rather than as a fundamental human right.  This is a part of the cause, but it's not what truly is driving this, in fact it is a consequence of the Exponential Function.

Lets say the doubling period for the population is 20 years.  Start in 1960 with a population of 1B people.  20 years (next generation) you need 2B housing units, so you had to build 1B new units assuming you lost none of the old ones.  Now it's 1980, and in 20 years you will need 4B units, so in the same time period of 20 years, you need to build 2B units instead of 1B.  So you have to build twice as fast.  Now it's 2000 with 4B so by 2020 you need 8B units, so you needed 4B more.  In 2040, if this continued, you would need 16B units.

You see the problem I trust.  Even if they didn't treat housing as a wealth storage medium, they can't build enough units fast enough to keep up with the exponential growth!  This also explains the collapsing fertility rate.  It's a direct consequence of population overshoot!  If it wasn't for the fact birth rates have been falling for the last decade, the problem would be even worse than it is.

It also means there is about no way that the affordable housing or homeless crisis will improve, it's going to continue to get worse and what we see now is just the tip of the iceberg.  Its not going to improve until death rates start growing as quickly as the birth rate is dropping.

Coming soon to a theater near you.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/may/21/young-adults-forced-by-eu-housing-crisis-to-live-with-parents

'I'm screwed': young adults forced by EU housing crisis to live with parents

RE