"Just build more houses" is not something that scales infinitely. Long commute distances and geography tends to get in the way with stuff like hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. while demand from foreigners and tourists will stay virtually infinite.
At which point do you stop building and say your city can't house more people without ruining the character that makes it a desirable city in the first place?
Should we level Lisbon's 2-4 story housing and turn it into a dystopian city with hundred story megablock towers like in Judge Dredd, just so that everyone in the world who wants to move to Lisbon has a place to live there? But then people won't want to live there anymore if Lisbon is just megablocks.