There is a lot of myth out there about how if we just build more market rate housing, we will somehow create more affordable housing. That we actually reduce housing costs by building more housing of any sort. Looking at history, it is easy to see this is not true. Minneapolis added over 20,000 housing units over the last 20 years and yet that did not solve our affordable housing problems.
Salon just had a really good piece explaining why this is not true.