Would that actually solve the problem? Is there anywhere in America where steel frame construction + concrete walls + elevators is affordable to regular people? Is there even one example of this happening in the real world?

I haven't found any examples, except in already hyper-wealthy neighborhoods, or in 40+ yr old buildings in cities that became significantly less desirable, due to very high crime/poverty/etc. (Detroit, parts of Chicago, etc)

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> (From the Slate.com article you linked to) What should be happening in Silicon Valley is an enormous construction boom. There should be oodles of blue-collar jobs knocking down suburban-style single-family detached homes and replacing them with attached townhouses. Right by Caltrain stations, there should be huge apartment towers going up. Some people might get dispaced out of the individual house they live in, but generally should be able to afford to stay in the area

Is that a thing that has ever actually happened -- even just once? It sounds like a false narrative.

In the real world, the creation of the Highrise adds more units (increases supply) but does not reduce demand -- because the presence of the new building makes the neighborhood more attractive, so demand rises even more than the supply was increased, driving prices even higher. If a hypothetical high rise has 20 units, the act of constructing it increases demand by 40 units (20 of which the building absorbs, 20 of which are dumped back into the already-high-demand neighborhood.

I'm in the "low cost of living" Midwest, and even here this occurs. A developer pays $150k for a single family 4bed home. Tears it down, and builds 3 condos on the site, each condo lists for $250k - $300k and is only 2bed each. The previous occupants are guaranteed to be displaced -- even if they could downsize their space needs, they can't afford to double their housing costs.

Where is this hypothetical place where these brand new condos cost equal-or-less than the old single family house that was just torn down?

Seattle is currently enjoying falling rents, and is the kind of hip coastal city that people care about: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2015/11/bad-timingas...

For more dramatic numbers, including low prices and a booming population for many years, you should look at Houston, Texas, Hero Of Housing Capitalism.

> Seattle is currently enjoying falling rents.

But that's not true, according to your own article.

From your link: "in the core of Seattle, rents went up 3.9 percent year-over-year in September."

The next sentence, about how growth was 8 percent the year before, is also meaningful. This is a better/more clear article on the same thing: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/morning_call/2015/12/repo...

> rents dropped this quarter in all but South Lake Union, with the average decline hitting $59 a month. Further, when all of these submarkets are considered, the average vacancy rate increase was nearly a full percentage point.

2015 new construction was huge, the biggest since the late eighties/early nineties, and construction for the next couple years, based on filings, looks like it's going to continue that way. So it's likely that apartment prices will continue fall or hold still.