The other alternative to gentrifying a neighborhood is moving to a LCOL city and watching prices rise there. So now Americans want to keep other Americans out of their cities.

And on top of that we are so car dependent that we can’t hope to build the kind of infill housing we need because there is literally not enough road capacity and transit options == lol.

Too bad the US has some of the worst transit construction costs in the world and tons of local opposition to boot.

If I was a betting person I would bet against the US figuring this out and guess that renting for your life will increasingly become the norm even in previously LCOL cities.