If you have a society with stagnant wages and the only route to a decent retirement and some generational wealth is rising home prices, then you will do everyth

If you have a society with stagnant wages and the only route to a decent retirement and some generational wealth is rising home prices, then you will do everything to protect that investment. Even if that results in, long term, making your city an overall worse place to live. In other words it's hard to blame individuals for making rational decisions in their own self-interest in a fundamentally broken system.