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.