[hellogoodbyeeee]

Maybe it is time to leave Seattle? It is pretty entitled of you to say that it is your human right to have a house in one of the most expensive metros in the country.

The economy is booming. Go find a new job. You will be able to and you'll get a pay raise.

[saosebastiao]

Cities aren't inherently expensive. Even in some of the richest and most prosperous cities in our human history, there have always been people less well off that could afford to live there. The only reason we have this concept of cities that only exist for a certain class of people is because we have deliberately made them that way.

People don't choose cities the way they choose a home. This isn't like someone thinking they have to live in a nice apartment when all they can afford is a nice apartment.

Cities are places where people can choose to live, but more likely than not they are where they haven't chosen to live. Their choice to stay is a choice to be with family that they need or that needs them. Or a choice to advance a career that they are unlikely to find elsewhere. Or to stay in a place that is culturally important to them.

We can afford to give people the possibility of not having to leave a place that they love, or comfortably afford a city they can't leave for whatever reason. It may mean that some people don't get rich off of rent-seeking housing markets, but it is entirely possible, and we should do it. It isn't any more entitled to want to do so than it was for our entire nation to want Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness when we didn't have it.

[hellogoodbyeeee]

I'm sympathetic to people living near where they grew up or where there family is at. I live where I live because of family. If it weren't for them, I would have left after college and never looked back.

Cities are inherently expensive. The more people you have wanting to bid up the limited amount of real estate in a city, the more expensive it will get. This pressure could be alleviated with higher density housing, but no one has a right to that.

[saosebastiao]

Likewise, no one has the right to restrict density on property they don't own.

Property owners have actual rights...they are listed explicitly on the deed or easement. Buying a property does not and never will confer the right to restrict other people's decisions of what can and can't be done on their property.

Society may decide on those restrictions together. But it is a bad precedent to give some parts of society more power than others when deciding on those restrictions, and it is in no way "entitled" for a member of society to complain about the results of this trend or want to fix it.