Then you're just woefully disconnected from real estate markets in big cities. The cheapest, crappiest, smallest house in a neighborhood like Santa Monica (which is nice, but not Bel Air or Malibu nice) is $1 million dollars. Maybe I shouldn't complain, because I have friends in San Francisco that have it even worse. The "making six figures and living with 4 roommates" is basically a meme at this point if you live and work in SF.
The solution here is to move to Austin (which a ton of people have been doing recently) or just travel the world because, thankfully, I can do my job remotely (but many people cannot). This was actually my plan, but the pandemic kind of killed that -- maybe next year.
Santa Monica is not a good choice for affordable living in a good neighborhood with a good school district in Los Angeles. Look a bit further afield in cities like Torrance, or even North OC cities like Fullerton or Garden Grove. If you insist on living in an expensive coastal city like Santa Monica, expect to pay for that privilege.
You missed the point. Of course Santa Monica is expensive, but the point is that it shouldn't be. In fact, until a few decades ago, it wasn't -- it's not like people just recently started liking the beach. Your argument also doesn't work because most LA tech jobs are in Santa Monica. The idea that it should be status quo to commute to your job because you can't afford to live around where you work is nonsensical. Not to mention that Santa Monica real estate (like a lot of CA real estate, including OC) is propped up by foreign investment and screws the actual locals that live in those communities -- unless, like my parents, you just happened to get lucky and get a house at the bottom of the bubble (a house which now almost doubled in price).
Professional, educated, well-off young people can't afford to buy houses in California (I've had this conversation with dozens of friends). Market forces or not, even as a part-time libertarian, it's clear to me that this isn't tenable and people are frustrated.
> Of course Santa Monica is expensive, but the point is that it shouldn't be
Not sure if your "should" is in the sense that logically it doesn't make sense to be, or that morally or ethically it had no right to be. For the first meaning, neighborhoods rise and fall in popularity based on trends, often driven by the tastes of young people, and is a natural cycle just like clothing fashion. Thus logically it should not be surprising that certain locations rise in housing costs as it increases in popularity. If you intend the second meaning, I'd be interested in your reasons.
> Your argument also doesn't work because most LA tech jobs are in Santa Monica.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers, but there are a large amount of tech jobs in the South Bay area as well, along the 405 going south around Gardena and such.
> The idea that it should be status quo to commute to your job because you can't afford to live around where you work is nonsensical.
The problem is that traffic around Santa Monica is horrendous, making the housing more expensive. My previous commute from Torrance to Culver City was 40 min in the morning and 20 at night, but going from Culver City to Santa Monica was an extra half an hour. If you pick some of the worst traffic areas in LA, I don't think you should be surprised or incensed that people will pay to cut that traffic time down. It's an infrastructure problem, really.
> Professional, educated, well-off young people can't afford to buy houses in California
There are still lots of cities with affordable house prices, unless they insist on competing to live in the worst traffic areas of California.
The solution here is to move to Austin (which a ton of people have been doing recently) or just travel the world because, thankfully, I can do my job remotely (but many people cannot). This was actually my plan, but the pandemic kind of killed that -- maybe next year.