I was tempted to go all “ well, actually...” on this, but I think the questions raised are much more interesting to discuss than the answer proposed. Can the trend of an increasingly unequal, speculative and unreachable housing market be reversed, and how? Can (and should) we give everyone the home they want in the city they want it in? I don’t have a good answer, although it will surprise nobody that I tend to favor dense urban transit/bike-friendly/walkable places. Personally, I feel blessed to be able to rent in the city I wanted to live in. The housing market here is not as awful LA, but some places are getting there with a market dominated by rich and older people. I know more than a few people who spend over half their dual income on rent and utilities and have no wiggle room to save up for a down payment. Housing was the issue during the recent local elections; the good places have become unaffordable for most while the mediocre places are now priced at what the good places were. I’m more and more convinced that this apparently untenable situation will have to break soon, but markets are always unreasonable for a much longer time than they should, so I can just as easily see this going on for much longer. I sure hope not though...
Europeans are used to homeownership because the serf system was destroyed by WWI, then the entrepreneurial class was destroyed by WWII, then the confiscation of Jewish wealth and the injection of the Marshall Plan created a short-term middle class the likes of which Europe had never seen before and will never see again. Americans are used to homeownership because America was frontier prior to WWI, then a massive hub of industrialization through WWII, and then the benefactor of global dominance and a colossal military-industrial complex to oppose the Soviet Union. This created a short-term middle class the likes of which America had never seen before and will never see again. If Americans want homeownership, we need viable livelihood to be possible in the rural areas where housing isn't competitive. If Europeans want homeownership, they need... Shit, I dunno. To move to Spain, I guess. California, Oregon and Washington are geographically and demographically similar to the UK... but economically, OR and WA aren't even needed for the UK to be overshadowed. It's easy enough to say "move to North Dakota" when you don't even really need to change your car tabs. It's quite another when there are five languages between you and opportunity.