American housing policy tries to solve two opposite problems at once. Your home should triple in value over time. Also, houses should be affordable. Pick one. You can't have both. The math doesn't work. If housing is the nation's primary investment vehicle, it can't simultaneously be cheap and abundant. The value of your house depends on scarcity. More supply means lower prices. Lower prices mean your equity evaporates. We built an entire system around home appreciation, then act confused when young couples can't afford starter homes. The New Deal launched federal subsidies to boost homeownership. The logic: homeowners have a stake in their community. They're less likely to contract communism or flush alligators into sewers. Fair enough. But the subsidies stacked up: • Mortgage interest deduction on up to $750,000 in debt • Property tax deductions (SALT) • First-time buyer credits • Government-backed 30-year fixed mortgages (banks charge less interest when Uncle Sam guarantees the loan) • Capital gains exemption on first $250,000 profit ($500,000 if married) No other asset in America works like that. Sell your stock portfolio for a $500,000 gain? You pay taxes. Sell your subsidized house for a $500,000 gain? Tax-free. Renters get none of this. No subsidies going in. No tax breaks going out. So mortgages became the obvious move. Build equity, protect that equity. Your home's value depends on your neighbor's home value. Cheaper housing next door means your investment drops. So America's 90,000 local municipal jurisdictions fight to ensure affordable housing never gets built near them. Zoning becomes the weapon. Minimum lot sizes. Historical preservation zones. Endless approval processes. The federal government subsidizes homeownership. Local governments strangle supply to protect home values. Result: structural contradiction. Now look at Japan. They treat housing like a commodity, not an investment. Houses depreciate like cars. Their tax code reflects this. You can depreciate your home's value, but the write-off shrinks as the house ages. Zoning is simpler. Twelve categories. New York has 150+. No minimum lot sizes. You can subdivide an acre into 10 smaller lots if you want. Micro-apartments are legal. Tokyo allows units as small as 50 square feet. New York mandates 400 square feet minimum for a studio. Construction is less bureaucratic. Meet the building codes, you're pre-approved. No multi-year battles with preservation boards. Japan builds five times as many houses per capita as California. Greater Tokyo has 37 million people. Average rent for a one-bedroom: $1,100. New York has 8 million people. Average rent: $4,000. Supply matters. A lot. Japan optimized for abundance. America optimized for equity protection. The problem isn't that we're failing to make housing affordable. The problem is we're succeeding at making it a good investment. Those are opposite goals. And we can't have both.