Yes, the increase in expectations of consumption – much of which was created dur

Yes, the increase in expectations of consumption – much of which was created during the 90s – that’s created a false impression of the baseline expectations of potential home owners.
Someone just sent me Austin figures which are informative, but not representative. National numbers are all over the place. I grew up in a small town in western NY state, and housing is ridiculous today. At present, I’m back living in the USA. I live a few miles east of the Microsoft Redmond WA campus, and we’re seeing east-asian sized apartments at NYC and San Francisco prices. Meanwhile the company (the tech sector) is exiting it’s (overpaid) middle layer on a scale we saw in postwar industrial sector in the 80s that led to the franchise boom as people were outcast from industry.
The Northwest saw this with Boeing in the 70s. Seattle was nearly a ghost town. I lived through the movement of tech sector from Boston to the west coast in the 80s but Boston recovered because of it’s institutions. I’m seeing the same near certainty in the current tech sector (where I made my wealth since the 80s).
So, between ‘the great sort’ and changes in urbanization, offshoring, asymmetry in the economy because of the tech sector, the tech sector obscuring the rest of the economy, questionable education expense, financialization of the economy, the pressure on the young remains prohibitive – and is more than responsible for suppression of reproduction.