“So what we have here is a bit of an urban mystery. If America’s biggest metros are shrinking, why are their housing markets on fire? And if rents are rising in almost all of these cities, how can they possibly be shrinking?” (the Atlantic)
Because the invisible hand of the market doesn’t exist. The housing market is on fire because landlords said “we want more”. That’s it. That’s the answer.
It’s the most frustrating thing to see journalists not understand for a second that economics and markets are completely man-made and thus, biased and gamed and not based on neutral laws of physics.
Investigate that “urban mystery” shit, please.