True. Most young Millennial couples I know in Jackson are homeowners; most in New Orleans are not (unless they live on the Northshore.) The housing crisis is extremely concentrated in certain metros/states (i.e., New York, California, D.C., etc.) that also happen to be where the pundit class resides, which is why this is such a big issue in the media.
Take a look at the trajectory of rents in Boise or Phoenix, neither of which are (to the best of my knowledge) where the pundit class resides. Rents may have stayed stable in Jackson, but they absolutely have not in Atlanta or even in Macon. In August 2019, I was able to get a lease on a one-bedroom with 729 square feet in Sandy Springs for a shade over $900. When I look online now, that unit starts at $1344, an increase of 50% in less than four years. I'm not sure how you can argue that this is something that only affects the elite.
Isn't the origin of the post-war suburban homeownership myth partially that people gladly moved to previously undesirable land in droves though? I imagine the already established suburban communities had massively appreciating housing costs in the 1950s, but when people are suddenly ok with living 30 miles from the city the costs will be lower.
Del Tachi is playing up the pundit class aspect more than it deserves, but young professionals are attracted to cities more than they used to, so you have a lot of demand for land at full occupancy. Boomers raising their children in places like suburban Cincinnati is different than millennials wanting to buy homes near Boston, NYC, Seattle, SF, LA, etc. I am capable of buying a home in my hometown but not super close to NYC. But that's not very different than my parents, who bought a home in my hometown and not near NYC. Becoming a homeowner is still achievable to the same percentage of Americans, it's just that more young Americans, specifically the children of UMC families, want a more interesting locale than the quintessential suburb.
Kinda but a major reason for it was the mass adoption of the car + the construction of the infrastructure to accommodate the car made living 30 miles away from downtown feasible in a way that it wasn’t before. I’d read it less as a change of taste and more as a transportation innovation changing the possibilities of where and how to live. My guess is that even today you’d see some correlation between areas that have seen a recently constructed freeway and those with an increase in first-time homeowners.
