It all begins with the urban sprawl experiment in the 1950s. As people left the city for the white picket fence in the suburbs, cities around the country began

It all begins with the urban sprawl experiment in the 1950s. As people left the city for the white picket fence in the suburbs, cities around the country began to subsidize the wealthy SFH owners. Sewers, water, electricity, roads, and gas infrastructure; and fire, EMS, police services are not cheap. The tax collected from a SFH suburb does not cover the expenses to build and maintain the infrastructure. So to help meet the increasing costs, municipalities need to raise property taxes for everyone. This increases the cost of living for everyone. So combined with inflation and the increased COL, the wages of your construction people on the ground (you know the people that actually build fucking thing you need) need to keep up with this trend so companies need to pay more. This doesn't come free so this is then passed on to the American tax paying populace. It's a never ending cycle. Low housing supply, homelessness and substance abuse are all symptoms of an underlying cause. Solution: it's a multifaceted approach - involving changes at the local, state, and federal levels. First, American cities need to get rid of SFH zoning entirely and re-zone for high density mixed use residential and commercial and get rid of any car-centric building policies (eg, car parking minimums). We need to get people out of their private vehicle. Second, need to introduce a luxury or inefficiency tax on existing SFH owners to minimize lost tax revenue and discourage people from buying a SFH (people that are poor can apply for waivers). Then earmark the luxury tax towards incentivizing developers and paying for infrastructure and enhancing public transit. Third, need to introduce extensive toll road fees for people commuting from the exurbs into the city. Why should cities continue to subsidize infrastructure for people that do not pay taxes within that county? Interstate travel will not be tolled. Then at a state level, DoTs need to re-examine where IH traffic can be redirected. In America, the highways often cut through the cores of each city. This not only reduced the amount of land that is available to cities to build on but contributed to the displacement of poor and marginalized people; and decreasing air quality. We need to follow in the footsteps of Dutch cities like Amsterdam and move towards a more scalable way of transportation and city planning. Additionally, at the state level re-examine where it's possible to reduce dependency on O&G sources of power. At the federal level, need to support states and cities through funding and providing research. Need to move the grid off of fossil fuel sources ASAP. Continue to provide green incentives and encourage people to make their homes more efficient (better HVAC units, solar power panel installations, ...). It will definitely not solve the problem in 5 years or 10 years. But maybe our grandchildren might have a chance.