Yes, housing by income strata is the best and ultimate city planning there is. Keep the proles where we can't see them. I agree with you 100 %.

That's the problem. The places that are affordable don't have jobs, and the places that have jobs don't have affordable housing. As soon as a place has jobs, the affordable housing disappears.

This sounds like supply and demand, but is exacerbated by investment concerns changing the dynamics of the market.

I hardly think it is this extreme. Switching back to specifically talking about developers (while the above was a more general statement):

Look at the pay and housing cost in downtown SF. Now compare pay and housing costs to other places, say Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, etc.

Yes you may make 400k in SF, but I don't think that buys you a lower standard of living. People look at raw $$ too much, and not cost of living when making job decisions.

Kind of a natural imbalance in the market.

> This sounds like supply and demand, but is exacerbated by investment concerns changing the dynamics of the market.

This rather sounds like the lack of jobs that allow remote work is the fundamental problem.

This is not helping it. I bet 50% of office jobs could be remote. What is the current %, I would guess under 1%.

Jobs like retail, laundry, hotel service... The jobs at the lower end of the spectrum, in general (ignoring call-center type work), can't be done remotely.

that for most people means you have to move far into the suburbs.

That's like if I said "You shouldn't buy a tesla X if you make under a million bucks a year" and you replied "that for most people means they have to drive a gas powered Jeep".

Maybe? But maybe living within your means is more important than a sense of being entitled to live in or drive a specific thing.