Same reason we can't build high speed rail, have to get approval by every property owner rich enough to hire a lawyer to build anything here.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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A median house price and median salary should also be calculated, those datas aren't very useful without understanding the economic condition of the people
The graph is change in real prices that means inflation / cost of living adjusted. The anglophone countries would need to see equivalent real wage growth to make it just about salaries, which as far as I know they haven't.
This completely and utterly ignores the capitalist pressures that also hit building materials. Just look at wood prices in the US. Prices have skyrocketed outside of the housing supply as well.
TL;DR: Capitalism is cancer on anything required to live, including the vast supply chain for such goods.
That doesn't explain why some nations are functioning better under capitalism than others though.
Because they put limits on capitalism.
It is not all or nothing.
Sure but what are the specific policies that explain this specific pattern? That's what I'd like to know. Just writing it off as capitalism bad doesn't help, even if it's true.
They’re welcome to buy wood from us Canadians.
Though we are pretty terrible at housing too. Every affordability measure is met with generations taught that their home will be their retirement, who do not want to see prices go down.
I’d blame Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and their disciples on both sides of the Atlantic. Not sure if a legal system based on Roman civil law/the Napoleonic code would have slowed neoliberalism or whether it’s merely correlated with the cultural divide between the former British Empire and continental Europe.
Also, isn’t Singapore a common law jurisdiction with a solid state-backed programme of building housing?
Or... These are very different places with different constraints.
For example, the US is comprised of 50 states - construction has to meant federal, state, county, municipality codes, and then any federal or state agencies that have a say on construction possibly affecting water ways, natural habitat, etc.
The bureaucratic process is staggering.
And municipalities change their minds every day the wind blows (and who is paying them off).
So it's a problem of bureaucracy and graft.
right and other countries don't have national/regional/local independent governing bodies?
fucking American brainrot, thinks America is special and inique and that justifies it being shite.
the only things special about the US is that the country is shite, and the population are mostly ignorant sheep.
Right, and maybe civil law is better at fighting bureaucracy and graft than common law.
For example, the US is comprised of 50 states - construction has to meant federal, state, county, municipality codes, and then any federal or state agencies that have a say on construction possibly affecting water ways, natural habitat, etc.
Sounds like Germany.
The right hand graph only covers, like, the last 10-15% of the left hand graph. If this was really a supply issue, then you'd expect to see a divergence starting back in the 1980s, not just the last decade.
There's so much spread in the 'civil law' countries that it's hard to call this compelling evidence for supply-driven housing crisis. Definitely something different between the common & civil law groups, but it's not supply. Or not just supply.
Not trying to back any specific side here, but the divergence at 2013 is because they're using a difference in price relative to Q1 2013 (so near 2013 it will always be close to zero). If you used 2015 or something the right graph would still look similar. We don't know if such a divergence is present since the 1980s since no data is presented (making it an unhelpful comparison).
It would also be good to see more countries included, and the actual lines labeled for which country they are. Overall I would say this graphic doesn't provide adequate information to back up its claim.
Also as Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe said above, different counties have different markets, policies, economies, etc. making it hard to make generalizations.