There are enough homes in the US, as far as I know.
> I'd argue this is actually the arc of humanity for millennia - America's decentralization is a mistaken aberration, and one that's ending.
Yes, I think you're right. And I think it's generally a good thing that the suburban sprawl phase is ending.
> People who can afford to overwhelmingly choose cities.
In the past, "can afford" was generally "yes" for cities, it's just that you may have had to choose a working class neighborhood. But now we have the population density of the 2020s and the income inequality of the 1920s. The result is that the zone of affordability for many cities is now so far out that you can no longer get close enough to even be able to commute into the city.
I'm not sure what the solution is. Reducing inequality would be great, but doesn't seem likely any time soon. Maybe a larger number of smaller mini-metropolises instead of concentrating in a small number of giant ones like NYC/LA/SF/Seattle, etc.
1.8% of all homes in the U.S. are vacant[1], as compared to 0.17% of the population who are homeless.
[1] https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf [2] https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2017-AHAR-P...
Wealth equality cannot save you from the basic mathematical reality that you can't uniquely assign N homes to N + 1 households. Inequality is the only thing that ever comes up in these discussions, and it's a red herring every time. Price is the mechanism by which markets exclude people, so it's the one you're going to see in a market economy. Social programs use waiting lists/lotteries/political connections, but at the end of the day it's all the pigeonhole principle.
Income inequality could be responsible for people wanting to concentrate in cities in the first place, but I'd argue this is actually the arc of humanity for millennia - America's decentralization is a mistaken aberration, and one that's ending. People who can afford to overwhelmingly choose cities.