There is a single solution for this – build more housing. Yet that option still remains unpopular, even among people who cannot afford housing. Blaming leaders is pointless. Instead organize and convince your neighborhood NIMBYs to change their minds.
The problem is lack of diversity of housing. There are no more rural suburbs and there's no urban housing centers. There's suburban SFHs, townhomes, and apartments, and nothing but. And no one likes it, but we all have to live with it.
Not to mention the potential walkable areas might as well just be a open door prison with the amount of crime and drugs.
"Just build more houses", yet alone when framed as "it's up to you to convince your neighbors to let you to build more houses" just doesn't cut the mustard any more.
We need serious changes that are actually going to make a difference, along the lines of (for residential property):
That would basically kill the entire rental market and force everyone who wants to move to a new place buy a place instead of having the option to rent which would make changing jobs super painful.
I moved across the country after college for a job and my brother has done that like 5 times changing jobs. Buying and selling a place is a huge pain and has an extremely high transaction cost compared to renting.
If there's a problem with a slumlord, you address that problem.
We don't ban restaurants because some of them have health code violations or food poisoning outbreaks; we get the individually offending restaurants to fix their crap.
Lol seems like you have never tried to do it in real life, easy to say impossible to do.
This is a complex problem that has many stakeholders who want to maintain status quo. Don't forget all the tax evasion and money laundering it supports.No one is asking questions till the market goes up.
Only way for a serious change if prices dropped overnight by 30-50% and people realize a house is just a place to live and make memories in, not a money machine.