no, they have a) either found other options or b) not found it worth their while to go in. Millions of people make decisions like this daily. I live in East Bay. to the detriment of my income, I chose a job in East Bay rather than Palo Alto because I had young kids and I didn’t want commute and we can’t afford PA. I’d LOVE affordable housing in PA so I could access higher paying jobs, and would live in a duplex even (shocking, no?). so I took a lower paying job so I ddidn’t have to commute. Adding more housing would HELP someone like me, and I don’t think that my husband and I and my young children bring chaos or reduce order, as you say above.
rents and home prices are set by demand and supply and not the housing density.
so then, if there is more supply (more dense housing), prices would go down, right? 
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NYC has roads too! If one doesn’t like smelly train can drive the car. One can live near woodside, corona, Jackson heights paying $700 to paying $3K as rent in Long Island City. Woodside is next stop to LIC. Both places are 10 mins away from Manhattan. I knew uber drivers who had bought SFH in Hicksville, which is 40 mins away from Manhattan (lesser than Fremont to SF). NYC is the only place where both high and low income co exist.
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Prices/Rents are the net results of which of the two is stronger: demand or supply.
so if artificial constraints on supply are lifted (NIMBYs screaming about the riff raff) then prices will go down? that is the actual reason NIMBYs - they want their home prices to stay high at the expense of the younger generations, its not really the riff raff they are concerned about.
Not enough roads to allow smooth traffic flow (is problem in other cities too) . Densification puts strain on infrastructure in a different way.
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Densification does not reduce the prices necessarily. That is what I am saying, it does not make homes any more affordable for next generation. It does reduce the housing and traffic quality though.
Not sure if density housing is going to make a highly desirable area affordable. There may be many folks like you who would love to live near high paying job, good quality of life & schools, …
It won’t make it affordable to everyone. But it will make it more affordable compared to the “SFH everywhere” alternative.
If Stanford accepts 10x more students then by definition it is more accessible. But still only the top of the class smart ones can get it. It would still not be accessible to everyone.
Any place on earth has a finite limit beyond which degrades the quality of life / desirability significantly. If more folks than what can be reasonably be supported by that place (assume density is not the limit) desire living there, and if these folks are able to afford higher prices, increasing density is not going to help.
Instead of diluting the quality of a place or an institution (say Stanford), the goal for advancement should be to create more & more desirable places / institutions that can provide the good quality of life & education to the masses.
The argument can be turned around too. If people don’t like living with neighbors next to them they can always move to South Dakota or something. There is plenty of empty space in this country.
Why should we allow people dictate one building structure only house one family on a 6k lot? Very few countries live that way. Turning some into duplexes or 3-level midrises won’t suddenly turn Sunnyvale into Manhattan.
Just provided an argument for why increasing density does not mean lower prices / better affordability. There are many other factors that should be considered.
I am not supporting or favoring YIMBY / NIMBY movement at this moment and will continue to observe. It needs more thinking. 
If you think about it, more people living in a city automatically makes it more affordable. Obviously the new people moving in could afford the cost of living there.
The problem with the interlopers (the one who intrude into a place where they are not welcome or not wanted due to one or more reasons) is that they are not welcome yet they insist raking up issue and trying to gain access. Much like some people want a certain person to bake their cake even if the person is unwilling.
Rhetoric Aside. At some point on supply and demand curve, the dis-economy of scale sets in. The additional housing unit degrades the quality of life and desirability of the existing ones. This idea is also known as diminishing marginal utility. Some call this Tragedy of Commons. Hypothetically, you can split a neighborhood and build infinite amount of homes so that a minimum wage earner can afford. Clearly, those who can afford will find another place over the quality of life issues.
Are you sure you own the entire town?
Define ownership.
One thing I’m trying to grasp is, CA haters keep saying there’s huge exodus but also say building more homes won’t reduce the home price. How can both be true?
They aren’t both true and these people don’t really care about affordability. What they really care is that nobody builds anything they don’t like around their houses.
But that sounds selfish in polite society so they wrap their arguments in some twisted logic.
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I won’t like it too if my neighbor builds a duplex next to me. But I don’t think I should have the power to veto their decision. It’s perfectly within their right as owner of their property to do that. I would just go pound some sand.