I think this is an immature understanding of how free markets work, how they slowly destroy themselves, and the problems at hand. Housing, like healthcare, isn’t a market where choice is always possible, rational, or meaningful. And the “government” who imposes density restrictions are in place because of the people who vote in that government - a large portion of those restrictions are not the product of the past and an immovable system but because the owning class actively want them to remain in place. The incentive of the current system is to minimize housing access to maximize investment profit.

No one, or very few people, should profit from housing as an investment. Landlords produce nearly no benefit once a person is in the house and I would argue every other (or most other) benefit they produce only exist because the system caters to housing as an investment vehicle.

Anyone defending landlords is defending their own self-interest at the cost of the greater good, at the cost of their neighbors, and the generations to come. It’s a parasitic job meant to transfer wealth from the poor to the wealthy.