I think this varies with western countries. As a Norwegian I could not fail to notice the extreme segregation of housing based on income and function in the US.

I think this varies with western countries. As a Norwegian I could not fail to notice the extreme segregation of housing based on income and function in the US. You have very large areas in the US with housing which seems to fall within a very narrowly defined price range. Now we don't have slums in the middle of wealthy areas in Norway (well we don't really have slums so that is another point), but middle class or working class and the rich can be living close to each other. A strange thing about the US I find is that despite being so seemingly free wheeling capitalist where everything is supposed to go, it seems overly regulated and planned with respect to what sort of housing can go where. There are so many large homogenous clusters. You would expect a very free market to be far more chaotic in what gets built where. I find this important as the argument in the US seems often be that people decide their own lot in life because in the US the market decides everything. Yet the outcomes seems far more political, and less meritocratic than one might assume.