This passage is key:
[Cities like San Francisco and Seattle have essentially become playgrounds for the wealthy in which existing homeowners fight tooth and nail any attempt to allow sizable amounts of new housing construction. They do this, they tell us, to preserve “the character of the neighborhood.” But what they’re really doing is using government regulations to drive up the prices on their own real estate, while driving lower-income people further and further out into the periphery.]
The real problem is those high-cost areas lose their EMPLOYERS; I live a dozen miles west of NYC, and we’ve been bleeding both workers AND jobs for years now. What is left is a small number of good jobs and a large number of McJobs - which would never let anyone buy a home here. NJ had only one out of its 21 counties see a higher rate of home ownership (versus renting) over the past several years, and that one is at the southern tip of the state - an undeveloped tourist destination. Otherwise, the American Dream is dead here - so they traffic foreigners here who will accept that they’ll live ten per room while serving the 1%ers. The price for American normals who wish to stay: No children, since you’ll be worked to death to pay the mortgage and property taxes.