Musings/Ramblings on this issue:
I do think it goes beyond the average joe, or jane, who needs a place to live. In the marketplace where I live, the "average" price of a single family home (1 child) one year ago was $550,000. The average median income was $42,000, or thereabouts. I've often wondered why no one ever asks where those average people were/are expected to live.
...
In most coastal urban areas median income families are expected to live in apartments, often shared with another breadwinner. In more rural coastal areas (like Rehoboth Beach), median income families congregate in trailer parks.
In the building boom the followed the war (WWII) contractors flooded the market with "starter homes" - small 1000 square foot 2 bedroom, 1 bath, car port on an un-landscaped rural lot. And the amenities were bare-boned - linoleum floors, shower over the tub, few built in appliances. (Home A/C hadn't been invented yet). The scheme in those days was a family started off in the "starter home', and as the family grew in size or affluence, they would move up to something nicer. Unfortunately, as real estate values escalated, "moving up" became much more expensive; the solution was to stay where you were and remodel. Soon all the "starter home" communities had 1000 square foot homes with 2000 square foot add-ons and two-car garages - some with back yard pools.
Enter the Government in the form of FHA! The best way for a developer to move his property was to have it FHA financeable; FHA, however, had design requirements that mitigated against starter homes and pushed the developer into more upscale accommodations - 2 baths, laundry rooms, wet bars, family rooms, two car garages, basic landscaping, etc. So now, there were no more affordable starter homes being constructed, and the existing starter home stock was being converted to middle-class housing.
Pre war, most urban newly weds lived with a parent, often until after the second child arrived.
When we left Long Beach, a rookie city cop married to an elementary school teacher could not afford a single family home in the area! The voters constantly pressured the planning and zoning folks the deny permits for entry level housing and to impose requirements that make the neighbor hood "upscale" - that's how they kept the neighbor hood "nice" (meaning keep "those people" out).
No one in city government addressed the problem that the thousands of minimum wage workers who were the backbone of the tourist industry could not afford housing within the city limits. They were expected to use public transit and live in outlying communities (which most folks would call slums).
Somehow it does seem that The American Dream is in foreclosure
der Brucer
