The argument I've seen is that basically because we'll never have that post-ww2 levels of construction - building more market rate housing only pushes existing tenants out of the city. You have to usually tear down existing housing and then build new. So, the old tenants get pushed out and then new housing comes in but it's a lot of investment properties and whatnot... So, the cost of housing doesn't actually go down.

If we had post-ww2 levels of housing development but with mixed use residential then I'm thinking we'd have more of an agreement but that's the issue... No one thinks that will ever happen. So, they advocate for more government housing because that will improve more lives of lower income folks.

As far as I can tell, the people against market rate housing are really just using low-income housing as justification of their NIMBYism.

Kind of like how domestic espionage is justified with calls of “think of the children”. They try to make you seem heartless to oppose their position.