We Should Build More "Unaffordable" Housing

When people -- specifically market urbanists versus regulation fans -- argue about housing affordability on the internet it seems to me that the two groups are using the concept of "affordable" in different ways. 1. In one usage, the goal of improving affordability is to make it possible for more people to share in the economic dynamism of a growing, high-income city like Seattle. 2. In the other usage, the goal of improving affordability is to reduce (or slow the rise of) average rents in an economically dynamic, high-income city like Seattle. These are both things that a reasonable person could be interested in. But since they are different things, different policies will impact them.