Work in cities is highly rewarded which means owning a home in a city is highly rewarded. It's a second order effect.

It's beyond me how you can think this makes even an ounce of sense. Contrary to your assertion, owning a home in a city isn't the same thing as working in one (I can't believe I have to say that), as should be made obvious by the fact that there are tons of employed renters and retired homeowners in cities. There are plenty of situations where the dynamic runs precisely counter to your claim: the obvious example being assetholders of real estate in a booming city extracting rents from the newly-arriving people whose work is "highly rewarded".

Work in cities is "highly rewarded" through high salaries (obviously). High house prices is (part of) how work in cities is _taxed_, which is pretty much the exact opposite of rewarding.

Really? Work should be disincentivized. Automation and innovation rewarded.

The goal of human existence is not and should not be "gainful employment".

I think the parent is objecting more to the fact that today's economy allows those with wealth to earn income from that wealth. (E.g. they own the property, they can earn income from rent. They own the factory, they can extract excess value from the labor. etc.)

Automation vs working is a different axis than rewarding capital vs working. They are both good discussions to have, though.

Ideally we wouldn’t have to work but we are very far away from that.

In the meantime it seems society is getting skewed towards benefiting owners over people who work. The news celebrates rising stock markets and rising housing prices. We celebrate “job creators”. The Fed responds when the stock market goes down but just shrugs when real wages for most people are stagnating or even going down . Investment income is taxed favorably over income from work.

Companies claim they are run solely for the owners (shareholders). Why not make workers also stakeholders that need to considered?

clearly the rewards from owning things vs actual work is a bit out of whack in our current society. but owning things is itself the reward for surplus work.

Make me long for the day we were all serf, could barely have enough to eat and the local Lord had jus primae noctis rights.