I'm tired of analyses of the housing crisis locked inside housing policy - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/01/30/europe-s-housing-crisis-is-a-democratic-time-bomb_6749946_23.html

Yes, yes - the decline of public housing provision, the growth of airbnbs... But the bigger - much bigger - issue is not housing: it's inequality.

The fact is that while living standards have stagnated for most people for 20 years or so - 50 in the US - the wealthy and privileged have continued to get much wealthier. About half of all house purchases in the UK now are for 'additional dwellings' - second homes, buy-to-lets, etc - because 10% of the population can outbid everybody else, drive up asset prices, and when it's something people can't live without, like a home, force them to pay unreasonable rents - further increasing inequality, both directly and indirectly, by sucking money out of local economies into elite enclaves.