Vancouver unfortunately best illustrates how speculation & wealth drive housing inflation.

If it was just a matter of more density, more housing starts, Vancouver would be the cheapest place to live in North America, its the opposite.

"Patrick M. Condon contends that the public, rather than private owners, should capture the increase in land prices stimulated by economic growth and consequent population increases. He argues that value increments are not attributable to any investment by the landowners, but instead to improvements in the surroundings of their parcels. These improvements are themselves a consequence of both public infrastructure investment and the locational advantage that results from investment by other private development in the vicinity"

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2024/07/19/Patrick-Condon-Why-Housing-Costs-So-High/

https://www.ijurr.org/book_review/broken-city-book-review/