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Notes -
YIMBY sentiment on this forum has (I think) been mostly focused on increasing the density of existing residential zones. However, it may be worth noting that there is an alternative: converting existing agricultural or unused land to low-density residential use (i. e., continuing to "sprawl"). In this article, a former employee of the libertarian Cato Institute accuses that organization of focusing exclusively on high-density housing, and of smearing as racist people who are not interested in long-term high-density living and clamor for more single-family houses. (In his view, upzoning imposed from the top down is not libertarian, because the existing owners have a sort of property right in the zoning of their neighborhood as a substitute for deed restrictions that could or should have been used instead of zoning codes.)
Another issue with increased density: does it actually help affordability long term? That is the reason we want density, right? When you add lanes to a highway, traffic gets better. For a while. Then people get used to the light traffic and change where they live (i.e., further away from town). Then traffic gets bad again. Who's to say that NYC will always be "unaffordable" no matter how dense it is? What if there's no bottom to the demand to live in NYC? What then?
"Induced demand" isn't a real thing for traffic, or at least, some of the new demand is proportional and will take up less than 100% of the new supply (and some will just be latent demand that was suppressed due to the system being previously congested). It is perfectly reasonable to just build more houses to alleviate the demand, much like you would supply more bread if the shelves at the grocery store kept running dry.
Of course, you could also recognize that much of the new demand for both housing and transportation comes from migration, and therefore argue that we should limit migration to prevent our transportation/housing system from being strained.
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