[mc32]

I think it's more complicated than the author suspects.

This is not a US only issue. And it's not a developing nations-like issue (say rural to urban migration pattern).

We're seeing this in developed countries (with a few exceptions, Japan, but they also have the confounding declining pop factor). So, The UK, Germany, Sweden, China, many others are seeing similar issues to the US (SF is a special case exacerbated by politics, but I digress).

I think policymakers (and markets) have been caught off guard by this shift to the city, ironically, oftentimes, precipitated by a boom in technology and or technology rich companies, who, despite Marissa's observation, can afford and can work with a remote workforce.

This is a transformation that was not predicted. And, unless in s top-down government system (ala China, or Singapore) this kind of change in infrastructural usage change, takes multiple decades to adjust to.

[fergie]

You could make the case (not made in the article) that social policy is increasingly being shaped to favour _ownership_ over _contribution_. Interest rates are kept low, residential investment property is taxed favourably, agricultural land is heavily subsidised, planning/zoning is unreasonably tough, and so on.

The market doesn't can't correct because the working classes are losing their ability to afford property whilst ever-richer property owners are heavily incentivised to continually expand their portfolios.

[mc32]

I suppose, but also we have a lot more international wealth buying up real estate which often times goes under used.

With globalized, unrestricted open markets we get the new international wealthy buying real estate across borders which competes against local buyers.

So, in SF and Vancouver you're not only competing against transplants from the Midwest but with wealthy investors from China, India, and other countries where people for different reasons want to get their money out of their countries.

[closeparen]

Isn’t real estate being abused as a store of value because the better-suited stores of value (securities, etc) are more restricted?