We're part of this same experience. Ever since I moved off to college, I lived in cities. But back in 2022 my partner and I moved to a small town in New England. In our case, one crucial thing...
We're part of this same experience. Ever since I moved off to college, I lived in cities. But back in 2022 my partner and I moved to a small town in New England.
In our case, one crucial thing unlocked this ability: remote work. Until remote work became ubiquitous, there was essentially no way to get a decent job in these small towns for most people. Maybe someone with family connections in town could manage to find something through a friend of a friend... but in general, most people would have a very time 'cracking' a job and reasonable housing outside of major cities and their suburbs unless they had some skillset directly applicable in that region.
I suspect one other thing contributed: the fact that American cities kind of suck. Cost of living is super expensive, rentals are generally awful, homelessness and drug use are endemic. Walkability, bikeability, and public transit are nonexistent, so you have to drive everywhere. If there was a single walkable city in the USA except for NYC (and I mean walkable, as in 'i don't need to own a car at all', not just 'i can take a boring stroll around my block), I would move to it in a heartbeat. But overall my small town seems to offer better amenities, at easier walkable access, than any city I ever lived in, for a cheaper cost. And I use our (one) car exclusively on weekends for elective travel and visiting friends and family, something hard to achieve in most US cities.
I remember one time, as a young mother, visiting a small American town with a stroller. I pushed the kid for many kilometers without finding anything interesting to go towards - the library was...
I remember one time, as a young mother, visiting a small American town with a stroller. I pushed the kid for many kilometers without finding anything interesting to go towards - the library was defunct, the playground without a single piece of equipment, the lake was surrounded by private homes with no public access (how is this legal?), and the big box mall area was still further way but accessible only by highway feeder road with no sidewalk. It was parking lot after parking lot after parking lot with houses in between, whose front yards don't see pedestrians.
It's so sad to see politicians walking back remote work so hard. Small towns in Atlantic Canada absolutely came back to life (briefly) with influx of young remote working professional families.
In some states like Minnesota, it's actually not legal! There is always a lot of debate over who owns waterways and waterfronts because of their public and private value.
the lake was surrounded by private homes with no public access (how is this legal?)
In some states like Minnesota, it's actually not legal! There is always a lot of debate over who owns waterways and waterfronts because of their public and private value.
It was Michigan :/ In my province even if a body of water is completely blocked up by private land, one still has the legal right to access it. However, legal right doesn't translate to landowners...
It was Michigan :/
In my province even if a body of water is completely blocked up by private land, one still has the legal right to access it. However, legal right doesn't translate to landowners welcoming you with open arms.
Sadly this has been my experience with most small towns as well. There are some good ones but anything affordable right now are basically just new developments shoehorned into dying communities....
Sadly this has been my experience with most small towns as well. There are some good ones but anything affordable right now are basically just new developments shoehorned into dying communities. Maybe the injection of money can save them, but it won't be a quick process
Boston is walkable. And, to address your point from another comment, at least when I lived there a decade ago, mass transit usage was very widespread and not really class-segregated. (Most of my...
Boston is walkable. And, to address your point from another comment, at least when I lived there a decade ago, mass transit usage was very widespread and not really class-segregated. (Most of my coworkers used mass transit to commute, at least for the "last mile" segment downtown to the office if not the whole thing.) If you work in an office downtown, office events will be walkable or mass-transit-able away, and there will be a gaggle of attendees taking the subway you can ride along with.
Of course, Boston is in no way, shape, or form more affordable than NYC these days. And the experience of living there is very different (AFAICT, having only lived in one of the two cities) than NYC; it's much, much smaller and slower-paced. That could be good or bad, depending on your desires, but as an "NYC substitute" it is at best qualified.
Chicago's not as good as NYC but it's very doable without a car. Just don't live on the south side and instead pick neighborhoods like Lincoln Park. The CTA gets you to most of the city fairly...
Chicago's not as good as NYC but it's very doable without a car. Just don't live on the south side and instead pick neighborhoods like Lincoln Park. The CTA gets you to most of the city fairly conveniently, although it feels like trains in NYC run more frequently (5 minutes versus 15 was my limited perception in NYC).
The big issue I encountered in cities other than NYC is a social one, actually: In New York, everyone assumes that you don't have a car. So social events always revolve around public transit...
The big issue I encountered in cities other than NYC is a social one, actually:
In New York, everyone assumes that you don't have a car. So social events always revolve around public transit accessibility, or, for work events, often around places you can walk to from the office.
Everywhere else, even the cities where you can get away without driving most of the time, people assume you have a car, and are willing to drive it across the city at the busiest time, often 5-7PM, to an event where there is social pressure to drink alcohol.
Plus there's the subtler issue where half the people who 'live' in those cities actually live in a single-family home in a suburb 45 minutes+ commute from the city centre. Which is a lame revelation about a friend or coworker, but honestly quite frustrating when you're trying to meet up with someone who 'lives in the same city as you' but it turns out they literally do not even live in the same county. But they constantly insist they 'live in the city' because they commute in.
I actually found this was more true in NYC than Seattle. The mocktail movement and increasing popularity of non-alcoholic beverages makes it really easy for me to pop into just about any place and...
to an event where there is social pressure to drink alcohol.
I actually found this was more true in NYC than Seattle. The mocktail movement and increasing popularity of non-alcoholic beverages makes it really easy for me to pop into just about any place and get a drink without worrying about alcohol.
Yep this is my life. Literally have lost friends because they moved just a little outside the city on the other side of the city from me, which is an hour and a half away with traffic. My drive...
Yep this is my life. Literally have lost friends because they moved just a little outside the city on the other side of the city from me, which is an hour and a half away with traffic. My drive into the city is 45 minutes and I don’t make that trek often.
The city is so large they might as well have moved to another country. Haven’t seen them in years.
Same for me. In my previous city, my friends and I grew up and lived in the suburbs. I was there til my mid-20s. I eventually moved into the city proper, into the core. Then my friends moved to...
Same for me. In my previous city, my friends and I grew up and lived in the suburbs. I was there til my mid-20s.
I eventually moved into the city proper, into the core. Then my friends moved to like the edge of the metro, in the exurbs. They had families and needed space, where it was cheaper. We moved in opposite directions.
Them having families, where I didn't, was definitely the biggest reason we all fell off, but also being minimum 45min drives away from each other didn't help. If we wanted to do anything where alcohol was involved (which was kinda our thing), that would require me staying out there for the night or them staying in the city with me for the night. It was definitely easier for me to stay out there, with no kids, but not easy for them, even with babysitters. And that's an annoying dynamic: if we want to see each other, I have to make the journey.
Ubers were $50 each way back when the "Millennial subsidy" was a thing; it's probably more now. So in the end, we just kinda stopped hanging out.
Yeah, same problem here. I just…. Drive. I know it’s shameful, I minimize the risk by following all the other rules like wear the seatbelt go the speed limit etc etc. Been doing it this way for...
Yeah, same problem here. I just…. Drive. I know it’s shameful, I minimize the risk by following all the other rules like wear the seatbelt go the speed limit etc etc. Been doing it this way for maybe ten years now, since before rideshare was much of a thing.
I also don’t really go nuts when drinking, my limit is 3-4 drinks depending on what I’m drinking, so that probably helps.
Still though, would be really nice if I didn’t have to drive.
For me San Francisco is a very walkable city. There are less walkable parts, but it's old enough and has good enough public transit that I have been able to live without a car there. The social...
For me San Francisco is a very walkable city. There are less walkable parts, but it's old enough and has good enough public transit that I have been able to live without a car there. The social aspect is also pretty good as long as you don't live way out in the Richmond or Sunset districts. There are enough people near me that I usually just walk over to gatherings. Other times I'll take the tram or BART.
It's not the same as NYC. But it's been a great place to live since I moved there 6 months ago from the burbs. Homelessness isn't as much as a problem as it was 3-4 years ago. There are still issues there, but it's a serious improvement. The city is lively with lots of activities and events. And of course the weather is great so you'll actually want to be outside most of the time. My mind was blown when I moved to the Bay Area years ago and people would host backyard BBQs in January.
And for all of the cost of living issues, if you can get a job in a tech company you'll be anywhere from "doing okay" to "packing away hundreds of thousands into savings each year".
A small note about SF is that it does have a lot of hills in certain areas, so how walkable it is really depends on where in the city you are and how able bodied and fit you are. Of note,...
A small note about SF is that it does have a lot of hills in certain areas, so how walkable it is really depends on where in the city you are and how able bodied and fit you are.
Of note, walkscore.com gives SF a 1 point higher score than NYC which I feel is correct having spent time in both cities. I think NYC has better connectivity/transit when you think about the city as a whole, but if you're not in outer sunset or richmond and instead along the BART or major MUNI lines then the transportation is pretty similar. I really wish BART ran all night though 😩
That "if" is putting a lot of work there. BART goes down a very narrow slice of the city, basically just market and mission. MUNI spreads out a bit more, but it's unfortunately tied to the same...
but if you're not in outer sunset or richmond and instead along the BART or major MUNI lines then the transportation is pretty similar.
That "if" is putting a lot of work there. BART goes down a very narrow slice of the city, basically just market and mission. MUNI spreads out a bit more, but it's unfortunately tied to the same tunnel below market street.
Notably, large portions of northern SF, pacific heights, japantown/filmore etc are just not served by MUNI.
MUNI service regularity is OK, but it's also very slow once you get out of the underground section in market. BART regularity can be pretty horrible. At non-peak times it's a 30 minute wait. Even the worst MTA lines in NYC at most have irregular 30 minute wait times, and the best ones (e.g 123, 456) are <5 minutes anytime of the week.
I really don't think SF Is very well connected. This is also bad when you compare the sizes; SF Is tiny, it's not all that much bigger than just manhattan, especially if you plot by population density.
When I lived there, I often had to Uber (or now waymo) just because MUNI buses are ass, and sometimes it just took way too long, and sometimes I had an appointment to catch which just wasn't possible otherwise.
I do wish they’d extend the third street line all the way to the bay. But it’s the newest tram line. Maybe it’ll get extended some day. And Richmond should get it’s own tram line like Sunset has....
I do wish they’d extend the third street line all the way to the bay. But it’s the newest tram line. Maybe it’ll get extended some day. And Richmond should get it’s own tram line like Sunset has. The buses are fine in my experience as long as they don’t go through the tenderloin.
I’m glad to hear Caltrain is getting extended to Salesforce tower. At least things are improving. The city I grew up near, Philly, has its transit service in a death spiral.
I think I largely agree. My spouse and I have had a similar experience. There's also something not often mentioned: American cities have been growing at the expense of rural areas and it's...
I think I largely agree. My spouse and I have had a similar experience. There's also something not often mentioned: American cities have been growing at the expense of rural areas and it's possible some of this is the pendulum swinging back the other way. After college, I moved to a metropolitan area because that's where the work was. But I grew up in far more rural areas for most of my life, and I often missed it. I now work remotely, and I saw no reason not to move away from the city. I don't mind living in an urban area and my spouse liked it, but our hobbies tend to either be home-bound or nature-oriented, the traffic was always terrible, most public transportation was a joke, housing was expensive, any sense of community had long vanished, and it was always so damn loud.
So, this trend does not surprise me. I've seen some larger cities in the Netherlands, and I'll admit I could probably live in one of those far more happily. But that's not really an option here, so we'll stick with our small New England town. I didn't really intend to be part of the troubling part of this trend; I didn't intend to contribute to the rise of housing costs in rural areas. I just wanted to get back to some quiet and I saw an opportunity to do so. I can only hope that my spending money here in my community offsets any negative impact we may have had.
Since the start of the pandemic, the population in rural areas has been growing for the first time in at least a decade, a U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis found. Among the 500 fastest growing cities in the country, the number of those more than 30 miles from a city center increased by 26% between 2019 to 2023, according to Census figures.
…
A shortage of undeveloped land in the Dallas area has pushed builders further north into Collin County, which includes Celina and other fast growing communities like Princeton, Prosper and Anna. There, homebuilders are selling 2,000-square-foot homes for $400,000 to $500,000 compared to $700,000 to $1 million for a similar home in suburbs closer into downtown Dallas, said Bryan Swindell, president of PulteGroup’s Dallas Division.
“Southern Collin County is just getting really, really, really expensive. Places like Frisco, McKinney, they just have no more large pieces of land so builders have started working north,” said Swindell. “When a piece of land comes on the market there’s 10 developers and builders bidding on it.”
Most of the new developments being built are master-planned communities with more than 1,000 tightly packed homes, a scale that makes the construction process more economical for builders. Many of the communities have their own self-contained amenities, like pools, parks, biking trails, playgrounds, and in some cases, their own school.
The big box retailers and chain stores are following the migration. The town will get its first Walmart and Costco in the coming months and last year it got its second Starbucks.
Was city housing ever affordable compared to rural housing? One of the reasons I never wanted to live in a city was because I can get more house for less money outside of a city, a single family...
Was city housing ever affordable compared to rural housing? One of the reasons I never wanted to live in a city was because I can get more house for less money outside of a city, a single family one at that, with the added benefit of not having to deal with tons of people and noise around my home.
Unfortunately, the place I live has ballooned in population and is no longer the place I moved to. At some point, it'll be time for me to move to somewhere more remote.
There is affordable housing and social housing (including renter-owned co-operative housing) in parts of cities in the US. But there's not a lot of it. There are affordable housing programs (i.e....
There is affordable housing and social housing (including renter-owned co-operative housing) in parts of cities in the US. But there's not a lot of it. There are affordable housing programs (i.e. grants, rebates, tax-deductions) in some states, along with similar rental assistance programs, to help at-risk people, low-income families, and other specific demographics. There's a great article here about social housing in the US with some comparisons to other countries.
The over-arching problem seems to be socio-political views that prevent people from supporting policies that effectively assist people to stay above the poverty line and to have access to education, jobs, and other opportunities that reduce the likelihood that lower-income people become perpetrators, or regular victims, of crime. People fear-monger government-owned housing; people have biases about the desirability of affordable housing (and affordable doesn't mean low-income, just affordable). I've read that there was a HUD study in the 80s or so that proved empirically that affordable housing had positive knock-on effects for pretty much every conceivable metric of quality of life. So the US stopped funding it at scale and that information was buried because it was politically inconvenient. Bill Clinton would go on to run on a platform to "end public housing as we know it." Cool.
But if there was one cause in particular to point to, that transcends political philosophies, it's red-lining. People at local and state levels can and have for more than 100 years, worked to create zoning laws that exclude, rather than include, and put up walls to protect (and therefore isolate) high-income earners while restricting and disincentivizing the development of affordable (not even low-income) housing and jobs in adjacent areas. And this isn't just about rich people not wanting to live within eyesight of poor people, they don't want to live within eyesight of the middle class, nor does the middle class want to live within eyesight of low-income and jobless-homeless people. Red-lining also keeps these social strata from mixing in public schooling, without saying anything about private schooling or after school programs within the same area (Finding Forrester is a good film (Sean Connery in an anti-racist role) with this setting as the backdrop).
Lately there have been good articles like this supporting affordable housing measures. There is also a short, non-fiction book called Poverty, by America -- by Matthew Desmond (in-depth summaries and reviews here and here that details some of the history of the systemic red-lining that takes place to keep America economically and racially segregated and to dilute the power of affordable housing programs that have actually been working.
Desmond observes that affluent families benefit most from federal aid, such as tax breaks on employer-sponsored health insurance, mortgage interest deductions, and 529 plans (Pg 93). In all, "the top 20 percent of income earners receives six times what the bottom 20 percent receives in tax breaks."
If we fixed some of the spending inequities, we could fix some of the social inequities that make affordable housing literally unavailable or undesirable to people of many socio-economic strata.
We're part of this same experience. Ever since I moved off to college, I lived in cities. But back in 2022 my partner and I moved to a small town in New England.
In our case, one crucial thing unlocked this ability: remote work. Until remote work became ubiquitous, there was essentially no way to get a decent job in these small towns for most people. Maybe someone with family connections in town could manage to find something through a friend of a friend... but in general, most people would have a very time 'cracking' a job and reasonable housing outside of major cities and their suburbs unless they had some skillset directly applicable in that region.
I suspect one other thing contributed: the fact that American cities kind of suck. Cost of living is super expensive, rentals are generally awful, homelessness and drug use are endemic. Walkability, bikeability, and public transit are nonexistent, so you have to drive everywhere. If there was a single walkable city in the USA except for NYC (and I mean walkable, as in 'i don't need to own a car at all', not just 'i can take a boring stroll around my block), I would move to it in a heartbeat. But overall my small town seems to offer better amenities, at easier walkable access, than any city I ever lived in, for a cheaper cost. And I use our (one) car exclusively on weekends for elective travel and visiting friends and family, something hard to achieve in most US cities.
I remember one time, as a young mother, visiting a small American town with a stroller. I pushed the kid for many kilometers without finding anything interesting to go towards - the library was defunct, the playground without a single piece of equipment, the lake was surrounded by private homes with no public access (how is this legal?), and the big box mall area was still further way but accessible only by highway feeder road with no sidewalk. It was parking lot after parking lot after parking lot with houses in between, whose front yards don't see pedestrians.
It's so sad to see politicians walking back remote work so hard. Small towns in Atlantic Canada absolutely came back to life (briefly) with influx of young remote working professional families.
In some states like Minnesota, it's actually not legal! There is always a lot of debate over who owns waterways and waterfronts because of their public and private value.
It was Michigan :/
In my province even if a body of water is completely blocked up by private land, one still has the legal right to access it. However, legal right doesn't translate to landowners welcoming you with open arms.
Sadly this has been my experience with most small towns as well. There are some good ones but anything affordable right now are basically just new developments shoehorned into dying communities. Maybe the injection of money can save them, but it won't be a quick process
Boston is walkable. And, to address your point from another comment, at least when I lived there a decade ago, mass transit usage was very widespread and not really class-segregated. (Most of my coworkers used mass transit to commute, at least for the "last mile" segment downtown to the office if not the whole thing.) If you work in an office downtown, office events will be walkable or mass-transit-able away, and there will be a gaggle of attendees taking the subway you can ride along with.
Of course, Boston is in no way, shape, or form more affordable than NYC these days. And the experience of living there is very different (AFAICT, having only lived in one of the two cities) than NYC; it's much, much smaller and slower-paced. That could be good or bad, depending on your desires, but as an "NYC substitute" it is at best qualified.
Chicago's not as good as NYC but it's very doable without a car. Just don't live on the south side and instead pick neighborhoods like Lincoln Park. The CTA gets you to most of the city fairly conveniently, although it feels like trains in NYC run more frequently (5 minutes versus 15 was my limited perception in NYC).
The big issue I encountered in cities other than NYC is a social one, actually:
In New York, everyone assumes that you don't have a car. So social events always revolve around public transit accessibility, or, for work events, often around places you can walk to from the office.
Everywhere else, even the cities where you can get away without driving most of the time, people assume you have a car, and are willing to drive it across the city at the busiest time, often 5-7PM, to an event where there is social pressure to drink alcohol.
Plus there's the subtler issue where half the people who 'live' in those cities actually live in a single-family home in a suburb 45 minutes+ commute from the city centre. Which is a lame revelation about a friend or coworker, but honestly quite frustrating when you're trying to meet up with someone who 'lives in the same city as you' but it turns out they literally do not even live in the same county. But they constantly insist they 'live in the city' because they commute in.
I actually found this was more true in NYC than Seattle. The mocktail movement and increasing popularity of non-alcoholic beverages makes it really easy for me to pop into just about any place and get a drink without worrying about alcohol.
Yep this is my life. Literally have lost friends because they moved just a little outside the city on the other side of the city from me, which is an hour and a half away with traffic. My drive into the city is 45 minutes and I don’t make that trek often.
The city is so large they might as well have moved to another country. Haven’t seen them in years.
Same for me. In my previous city, my friends and I grew up and lived in the suburbs. I was there til my mid-20s.
I eventually moved into the city proper, into the core. Then my friends moved to like the edge of the metro, in the exurbs. They had families and needed space, where it was cheaper. We moved in opposite directions.
Them having families, where I didn't, was definitely the biggest reason we all fell off, but also being minimum 45min drives away from each other didn't help. If we wanted to do anything where alcohol was involved (which was kinda our thing), that would require me staying out there for the night or them staying in the city with me for the night. It was definitely easier for me to stay out there, with no kids, but not easy for them, even with babysitters. And that's an annoying dynamic: if we want to see each other, I have to make the journey.
Ubers were $50 each way back when the "Millennial subsidy" was a thing; it's probably more now. So in the end, we just kinda stopped hanging out.
Yeah, same problem here. I just…. Drive. I know it’s shameful, I minimize the risk by following all the other rules like wear the seatbelt go the speed limit etc etc. Been doing it this way for maybe ten years now, since before rideshare was much of a thing.
I also don’t really go nuts when drinking, my limit is 3-4 drinks depending on what I’m drinking, so that probably helps.
Still though, would be really nice if I didn’t have to drive.
For me San Francisco is a very walkable city. There are less walkable parts, but it's old enough and has good enough public transit that I have been able to live without a car there. The social aspect is also pretty good as long as you don't live way out in the Richmond or Sunset districts. There are enough people near me that I usually just walk over to gatherings. Other times I'll take the tram or BART.
It's not the same as NYC. But it's been a great place to live since I moved there 6 months ago from the burbs. Homelessness isn't as much as a problem as it was 3-4 years ago. There are still issues there, but it's a serious improvement. The city is lively with lots of activities and events. And of course the weather is great so you'll actually want to be outside most of the time. My mind was blown when I moved to the Bay Area years ago and people would host backyard BBQs in January.
And for all of the cost of living issues, if you can get a job in a tech company you'll be anywhere from "doing okay" to "packing away hundreds of thousands into savings each year".
A small note about SF is that it does have a lot of hills in certain areas, so how walkable it is really depends on where in the city you are and how able bodied and fit you are.
Of note, walkscore.com gives SF a 1 point higher score than NYC which I feel is correct having spent time in both cities. I think NYC has better connectivity/transit when you think about the city as a whole, but if you're not in outer sunset or richmond and instead along the BART or major MUNI lines then the transportation is pretty similar. I really wish BART ran all night though 😩
That "if" is putting a lot of work there. BART goes down a very narrow slice of the city, basically just market and mission. MUNI spreads out a bit more, but it's unfortunately tied to the same tunnel below market street.
Notably, large portions of northern SF, pacific heights, japantown/filmore etc are just not served by MUNI.
MUNI service regularity is OK, but it's also very slow once you get out of the underground section in market. BART regularity can be pretty horrible. At non-peak times it's a 30 minute wait. Even the worst MTA lines in NYC at most have irregular 30 minute wait times, and the best ones (e.g 123, 456) are <5 minutes anytime of the week.
I really don't think SF Is very well connected. This is also bad when you compare the sizes; SF Is tiny, it's not all that much bigger than just manhattan, especially if you plot by population density.
When I lived there, I often had to Uber (or now waymo) just because MUNI buses are ass, and sometimes it just took way too long, and sometimes I had an appointment to catch which just wasn't possible otherwise.
I do wish they’d extend the third street line all the way to the bay. But it’s the newest tram line. Maybe it’ll get extended some day. And Richmond should get it’s own tram line like Sunset has. The buses are fine in my experience as long as they don’t go through the tenderloin.
I’m glad to hear Caltrain is getting extended to Salesforce tower. At least things are improving. The city I grew up near, Philly, has its transit service in a death spiral.
I think I largely agree. My spouse and I have had a similar experience. There's also something not often mentioned: American cities have been growing at the expense of rural areas and it's possible some of this is the pendulum swinging back the other way. After college, I moved to a metropolitan area because that's where the work was. But I grew up in far more rural areas for most of my life, and I often missed it. I now work remotely, and I saw no reason not to move away from the city. I don't mind living in an urban area and my spouse liked it, but our hobbies tend to either be home-bound or nature-oriented, the traffic was always terrible, most public transportation was a joke, housing was expensive, any sense of community had long vanished, and it was always so damn loud.
So, this trend does not surprise me. I've seen some larger cities in the Netherlands, and I'll admit I could probably live in one of those far more happily. But that's not really an option here, so we'll stick with our small New England town. I didn't really intend to be part of the troubling part of this trend; I didn't intend to contribute to the rise of housing costs in rural areas. I just wanted to get back to some quiet and I saw an opportunity to do so. I can only hope that my spending money here in my community offsets any negative impact we may have had.
From the article:
…
Was city housing ever affordable compared to rural housing? One of the reasons I never wanted to live in a city was because I can get more house for less money outside of a city, a single family one at that, with the added benefit of not having to deal with tons of people and noise around my home.
Unfortunately, the place I live has ballooned in population and is no longer the place I moved to. At some point, it'll be time for me to move to somewhere more remote.
There is affordable housing and social housing (including renter-owned co-operative housing) in parts of cities in the US. But there's not a lot of it. There are affordable housing programs (i.e. grants, rebates, tax-deductions) in some states, along with similar rental assistance programs, to help at-risk people, low-income families, and other specific demographics. There's a great article here about social housing in the US with some comparisons to other countries.
The over-arching problem seems to be socio-political views that prevent people from supporting policies that effectively assist people to stay above the poverty line and to have access to education, jobs, and other opportunities that reduce the likelihood that lower-income people become perpetrators, or regular victims, of crime. People fear-monger government-owned housing; people have biases about the desirability of affordable housing (and affordable doesn't mean low-income, just affordable). I've read that there was a HUD study in the 80s or so that proved empirically that affordable housing had positive knock-on effects for pretty much every conceivable metric of quality of life. So the US stopped funding it at scale and that information was buried because it was politically inconvenient. Bill Clinton would go on to run on a platform to "end public housing as we know it." Cool.
But if there was one cause in particular to point to, that transcends political philosophies, it's red-lining. People at local and state levels can and have for more than 100 years, worked to create zoning laws that exclude, rather than include, and put up walls to protect (and therefore isolate) high-income earners while restricting and disincentivizing the development of affordable (not even low-income) housing and jobs in adjacent areas. And this isn't just about rich people not wanting to live within eyesight of poor people, they don't want to live within eyesight of the middle class, nor does the middle class want to live within eyesight of low-income and jobless-homeless people. Red-lining also keeps these social strata from mixing in public schooling, without saying anything about private schooling or after school programs within the same area (Finding Forrester is a good film (Sean Connery in an anti-racist role) with this setting as the backdrop).
Lately there have been good articles like this supporting affordable housing measures. There is also a short, non-fiction book called Poverty, by America -- by Matthew Desmond (in-depth summaries and reviews here and here that details some of the history of the systemic red-lining that takes place to keep America economically and racially segregated and to dilute the power of affordable housing programs that have actually been working.
If we fixed some of the spending inequities, we could fix some of the social inequities that make affordable housing literally unavailable or undesirable to people of many socio-economic strata.
Not per square feet. But the counterpoint is, that the city is your home.