My guess is that this probably indicates that the primary obstacle to construction currently isn't developer capital. It could be that housing construction is still profitable, as there's comparatively less political resistance and less of the budget has to go to legal fees and bribes.

In the interest of being intellectually honest though, that's probably not the full story. It's worth pointing out that Chicago's population peaked in the 50's and that property taxes were probably lower back then.

Also worth pointing out that there's a lot of directions for sprawl to help meet housing demand. I actually grew up in Indiana and my dad worked in Chicago. We lived in Indiana because the property tax was significantly lower even though housing prices were comparable.

I don't think this statement is true because in high cost areas developers still don't develop because higher price also mean higher land costs. On top of that places like NY have lower taxes but not enough development over a long term scale. This taxes codes don't change on a whim. There is also a factor of zoning when it comes to build there very well might not be any land to develop near a city because it's all saturated from long term speculation