[Aunche]

These days, it's not enough to live in a world-class city, you need to have your own kitchen, living room, and bathroom that barely get used. The people I know who complain about high cost of living refuse to live with other people.

[humanrebar]

That works great until you get married and start a family.

I mean, in theory there could be acceptable ways to let a couple with babies have roommates. But the design problems alone seem too complicated to attempt, let alone the cultural problems.

Also, keep in mind that a young couple with kids might have only one income earner. And that couple is in the same apartment hunt with singles willing to share multi-tenant residences. Sometimes three or four of them!

Point being, "get roommates" doesn't scale over time or over the entire population.

[ausbah]

I think the issue is more when people are still having roommates when they're in their 30s and older. it's hard to have families when you still can only a afford a bedroom, driven mostly by debt and low wages if I had to guess

[Gollapalli]

God forbid you have your own place like the last three generations before you!

No, just rent and share like a college student your whole life. That makes sense.

[Aunche]

Everyone has to make trade offs. You want to live in the cultural capital of the world or place where the average income is over six figures, but everyone else does as well. There's limited space in these cities, so you need to bid top dollar if you want to keep a place for yourself.

[Gollapalli]

Sorry man, I just don't buy it. Expensive housing is a solveable problem. Six figures isn't that much when you're still spending half your paycheck on rent.

As for the cultural capital of the world? New York used to have a thriving art scene when it was cheap to live in. Now it just has an expensive art scene.

[Aunche]

I agree that housing policy is broken and has a lot of room for improvement. There's no way around supply and demand though. At best you'll have a situation like Singapore where housing is expensive, but still attainable.