I don’t think you’re wrong, but I think this might be over simplifying.
For one thing, in the USA, our building codes and standard methods for making apartments makes it very difficult and space inefficient to make apartments with enough bedrooms for families. Affording a SFH is only so desirable because there aren’t apartments big enough for families to grow into, and while moving to a rural area might allow for enough living space, now the family has to figure out how to have a job that supports them.
For another, we don’t make as many apartment-like buildings you can own part of. This deincentivizes staying in apartments, because with the way our real estate economy is structured, owning any real property is one of the best ways to secure a spot in the middle class.
Another aspect-- a lot of desirable places to live have populations that literally and directly state they don’t want to build more dense housing, they don’t want people who can’t afford the sfhs to live there. It’s not just about pricing people out of homeownership, it’s literally trying to gatekeep access to specific towns by class. Plenty of people would gladly accept living there even without SFHs, so the housing shortage is not caused by the people who want houses, and is instead caused by the people who don’t want apartments next to their houses.
Another aspect-- a lot of desirable places to live have populations that literally and directly state they don’t want to build more dense housing, they don’t want people who can’t afford the sfhs to live there.
That’s true, but I think that’s largely because they feel it’s necessary to protect their main investment. As you said, owning real property is one of the best ways into the middle class. For many Americans, their home is their most valuable asset, by far. People want to maintain these restrictive zoning laws because they feel it’s in their financial best interest to do so.
But I agree with pretty much everything you said.
For one thing, in the USA, our building codes and standard methods for making apartments makes it very difficult and space inefficient to make apartments with enough bedrooms for families. Affording a SFH is only so desirable because there aren’t apartments big enough for families to grow into, and while moving to a rural area might allow for enough living space, now the family has to figure out how to have a job that supports them.
Worth noting as well that it’s not just space. The construction and maintenance standards for US apartments are pure garbage. Every corner that can be cut, is. The kitchens are terrible, the insulation, thermal and acoustic, is subpar (if it’s even present - it wasn’t in any apartment that I lived in since 2000). They are frequently built purely with slum-lords rent-seeking from those who can’t afford a voice in mind, and little to no consideration for the inhabitants beyond appearing to meet building codes.
In order for Americans to buy into dense residential, it needs to be built in a way that it hasn’t for at least 50 years.
while moving to a rural area might allow for enough living space, now the family has to figure out how to have a job that supports them.
This is another place WFH benefits people. Folks can move somewhere affordable and live really comfortably, which reduces demand for housing in places where people need to be in person to go to work.
But then they’ll complain about “amenities” and “wanting to meet people” and “sitting around a fire all night making friends with woodland creatures isn’t good for your mental health” and they’ll still want to be crammed into a city.
