> Citation please? I've lived in this metro area for 18 years, and the only constant has been that they keep building more giant buildings all the time, so clearly something there doesn't add up.

NYC zoning is public record:

https://zola.planning.nyc.gov

The highest density residential buildings are zoned R10. Go uncheck all the boxes and then check that one to see where they're allowed. Spoiler: It's almost nowhere and the few places that have it also already have those buildings; there is basically nowhere to put new ones and some of the existing ones aren't even zoned for their current location anymore.

That is how zoning works to constrain housing supply. There will be large areas zoned R1-R5 and you can't put tall buildings there. There is a smaller amount of space zoned R6, which is kind of dense, but those areas already have those buildings too, so making them taller is still prohibited. That's the trick: In any given place, buildings are only allowed to be as tall as they currently are; little space is allowed for new buildings taller than what's already there.

Another giveaway that this is done to constrain the housing supply is that the land area allocated to each zoning level is inversely proportional to the density it allows.

In a dense city like NYC this means you can still see a lot of "tall" buildings, but you still can't put a 13 story building in the places where there is currently a 2-story one and you can't put a 30 story building in the places there is currently a 13 story one, so the existing density persists but isn't allowed to increase.

> Yes, and realistically there's no practical amount of construction that would cause NYC to become inexpensive, because the demand is too great.

Well that sounds like a testable hypothesis. Why don't we find out?

> That doesn't happen overnight

Best to get started then.

> and is subject to physical limitations: finite space constraints / a lack of purchasable land for development or re-development

Space constraints are solved by taller buildings. They can't be infinitely tall, but neither is there infinite demand, and you don't even have to satisfy all of the demand to cause prices to be lower than they are now or allow more people to live in the city than they currently do.

> Paid for how, and by whom?

By taxes, the same as interstate highways or law enforcement.

> No, I'm in favor of it because it makes bus commutes substantially faster, and the revenue will support the continued operational needs of the subway system.

You're saying different words that mean the same thing. You're in favor of it because you want improvements to the thing you use that come at the expense and inconvenience of someone else. It's the people paying the cost rather than receiving the benefit who are the ones objecting.

> You're asserting that because Murphy is opposed to congestion pricing several years later, this somehow means a majority of NJ residents are also opposed? That's ridiculous and doesn't logically follow. In truth a majority of NJ residents don't ever drive into NYC anyway and don't care one way or the other about this issue.

It's evidence that the majority of NJ residents who care about the issue are opposed to it, because the governor has reasons to satisfy constituents even if not running for another term in the same office if he wants to run for some other office or continue doing business with the representatives of various parts of the state during the rest of his term.

> Why should people living outside of New York get to vote on something affecting local roads in New York City?

Because they use those roads, have an interest in government policies that directly affect them, and are citizens of the country in which New York is a city.