I don't think we should take it for granted that it's prohibitively expensive to live in cities. That may be the state of metro areas in North America right now (SF, NYC, Vancouver) but historically this isn't a constant.
Obviously enough economic incentive exists to convince people to spend the time and effort to commute, but if city centers were more affordable to live in, many fewer would choose to live so far away from work. Myself included.
> if city centers were more affordable to live in, many fewer would choose to live so far away from work. Myself included.
I agree, and would personally do the same too if possible. But I've watched us artificially inflate property values for literally my entire life. Even in my tiny US Midwest city in the middle of nowhere, city center prices have never been remotely affordable.
We should take it for granted that it's too expensive to live in US/CA/AUS/NZ cities -- because that's the honest truth. That's been the current state for decades, and there's very little chance that any major city center ever becomes affordable again in our lifetimes.
Obviously, we should still try to fix this. I fully support trying. But every facet of our society is wholly dedicated to preventing city centers from ever becoming affordable. Affordable city centers just are not likely to happen. We should not assume regular people live in a situation that doesn't exist, and likely never will.
Making city centers affordable would just require once again turning occupying / owning land into a tax liability rather than a rentier asset that grants you an effective right to tax others.
Rent certainly makes it more affordable to live somewhere until you suddenly never own your home and the rent was higher than the potential mortgage the whole time. I understand home ownership has a lot of hidden costs, but I think the rent situation is a festering cancer preventing the growth of a middle class especially in cities.
Obviously enough economic incentive exists to convince people to spend the time and effort to commute, but if city centers were more affordable to live in, many fewer would choose to live so far away from work. Myself included.