The problem with the American housing market is 80 years ago, planners decided that cities were dead and the future was car-centric suburbs. People agreed, at least until recently, and now we’ve gotta catch up on building, but the people who have made a lot of money staying in cities won’t let us.
It's kinda jading reading up on SoCal puncturing the "GM conspired to destroy streetcars" legend with "Pacific Electric used streetcars as a loss-leader to sell improved land, and Angelinos hated it and switched to cars by the mid-20s"
Problem wasn't capitalism per se, it's us (but also capitalism)
It's also the people in the suburbs! Cities need more housing, but they also need to tear up the urban highways and parking lots that the suburbs rely on to subsidize the sprawl. Very hard political problem.
Yes, and at the same time/a little before this, zoning codes that downzoned many parts of most cities, and mandated the separation of uses far beyond "don't build factories next to (some) residential areas," were implemented, and likewise, until recently people agreed this was the way to go!
Yes and the forced exclusion of businesses from residential areas was driven by white neighborhoods wanting to keep lower middle class (and minority) families from moving up into their communities by having a business on site. As a result, cars became necessary for any excursion
the effects of these policies can be seen in food deserts. Shops simultaneously moving out of poorer areas to target wealthier shoppers, but not being able to move into directly into those neighborhoods so they end up in shopping districts miles away. San Jose has a huge desert in their SE quarter
Fully half of my small city’s housing was built before the 1950s. Dense, downtown mixed use development is a huge need but we just havent been building anything.
