I think the general premise is housing can't both be so cheap that people with nearly no net worth can get it, but so valuable that it can serve as a substitute

I think the general premise is housing can't both be so cheap that people with nearly no net worth can get it, but so valuable that it can serve as a substitute for retirement savings. This is from first principles true, but it's really only a problem in urban areas: my pet theory is that spiking demand for urban housing is driving 100% of this. Americans used to move far more than they do now [move], even when you factor in the pandemic, and they used to be more comfortable living in all kinds of different places, but now people move to cities and stay put. This is for all kinds of reasons, all under the category "it sucks not to live in a city for almost everyone". Economic opportunity is way, way lower [econ]. Racism, misogyny, homo/transphobia, hyper religiosity, and lack of diversity are huge problems. Urban schools dramatically outperform rural schools [schools]. Health care is harder to get [health care]. I think the data bear me out here; in particular general homeownership rates are basically what they were in 1963 [homeownership], but urban homeownership rates are way below the average [urban homeownership]. There are some signs that this trend is reversing, but I think that was entirely a pandemic phenomenon. Big numbers of Americans regret their pandemic moves [regrets], so I think the environment hasn't actually changed. It's hard to see where this goes. Most other places solve this by becoming very very dense (Hong Kong) or building great mass transit (Tokyo). It really seems like the US won't do either of those things--maaaaaaybe NYC will but that would be all. I tentatively predict that we have to wait for most of the Boomers to die and leave their wealth/houses to Millennials before we know if this is a bona-fide societal crisis or not: if enough Millennials get what they want this way it'll take the oomph out of any kind of policy change (probably reverse the momentum actually--if anyone thinks Millennials will be any better than Boomers they're super mistaken). But, neither outcome is really good. On the one hand you have the daunting prospect of a dramatic economic reorganization of the most powerful nation on Earth. On the other you have the calcification of the most powerful nation on Earth into something fundamentally unequal, illiberal and corrupt. [move]: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/historic.html https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/de... [econ]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/six-charts-illustrate-divide-rural-urban-america https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/six-charts-illustrate-di... [schools]: https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/education-gap-distance-learning https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/education-g... [health care]: https://www.gao.gov/blog/why-health-care-harder-access-rural-america https://www.gao.gov/blog/why-health-care-harder-access-rural... [homeownership]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N [urban homeownership]: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/12/homes_on_the_range.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/... [regrets]: https://homebay.com/moving-trends/ https://homebay.com/moving-trends/ https://homebay.com/moving-trends-2024/ https://homebay.com/moving-trends-2024/