When I lived downtown within a 10 minute walk of work, it was pretty nice, but most of the space was not apartments; it was commercial. Offices, restaurants, etc. In fact, my apartment was a converted hotel - the sort of place I couldn't hope to afford in NYC or DC.

So, isn't it kind of normal for central urban areas to be too dense and high rent for (normal) people to live in?

Conversely, I'm living within city limits now, but practically it's indistinguishable from (and adjoining) "suburbs" so saying people need to live in this sort of place instead seems meaningless to me.