I think it's more a lack of imagination. I gave up renting in LA and moved to a place where I could afford a great house with great local amenities for under $400k. I tried to convince my brother and his wife to move here but, although they can barely afford their condo fees, they're stuck in the mindset that anywhere outside LA is the "sticks". So it would mean losing their big shot at bigger career opportunities... even though they really only want to raise their kids and have no serious ambitions about that. Meanwhile they're in a tiny place while everything around them falls apart. It's frankly incomprehensible to me that people can't adjust to changing circumstances and re-evaluate their situation, and tack a different course. But my point is, you have to credit a lot of inertia to the reasons why people continue to live in places that are not affordable. Given the choice and if they knew they had job security elsewhere, I think most people would spread out to smaller towns, $300k houses and build the communities they want. They're just paralyzed by having to break with familiarity.

LA is, however, building more condos than most other areas. They tear down an old 1950s or early single family and put in four ~$1m units... that's better than the Bay area that refuses to do that. This is of course neighborhood by neighborhood so it may not be at the necessary scale to provide relief.

I love LA though but the housing situation really does suck.

It’s $1.5M because of limited supply, not because it has to be that expensive.

You’re ignoring two things: 1) many people don’t care about city living just access to jobs, thus a cheaper city with jobs is a good substitute and 2) sure there is a price premium, but $600k seems more reasonable than $1.5M.

And you're ignoring that many people _do_ care about city living.

> sure there is a price premium, but $600k seems more reasonable than $1.5M.

So now you've built $600k houses, not $300k houses. And if there are desireable jobs in the area, that pushes the demand for thouse $600k houses up to the amount that is paid in the area.

And you also need to bear in mind that a 2x increase in house price means much more than a 2x decrease in the number of people who can afford it.

I lived in San Jose from 2015 to 2020 and I can't possibly fathom how anyone would consider it "nice". It's extremely crowded, traffic is a nightmare. You can't actually enjoy any of the amenities because they are always jam packed. I think the real reason someone buys a $1.5m house in the San Jose area is because it enables them to take a very high paying job.

No teacher can afford to live in the neighborhood if the house prices are that high. Why would the schools be better?

All else being equal, if you have two neighboring school districts, one with good schools and one with bad schools, people will be willing to pay more for houses in the good school district.

So higher house prices will tend to correlate with better schools.

The causation will be more like if you have two neighboring school districts, the one with higher house prices will tend to be the good school district because the kids’ will be coming from houses with educated and financially successful parents like doctors, engineers, lawyers, business owners, etc.

The secret about good school districts is it's mostly about good student & parent populations. It makes people angry when you say that out loud.

It's a highly cyclical thing. Schools that perform well are generally in rich areas, because that's how they're funded. Well funded schools have better facilities, more programs, and can hire more teachers, so have better student to teacher ratios. People want to send their kids to those schools, but need to live in those districts, so move there. The property value of those areas go up, which leads to more funding to the schools, etc.

Schools that perform poorly are usually in poor areas. They get less funding because the property is worth less in that area. They have more students, because it's cheaper to live in those areas, but have worse facilities, fewer programs, and they can't hire as many teachers, leading to even worse teacher/student ratios. People who can afford to move to better school districts do so, or find a private school they can afford.

People get angry when you say that because it's taking a complex issue and trying to simplify it in a way that's only true from a surface level.

The performance of a student is mostly dependent on the student's ability themselves, their social groups and how much their parents are able to give a shit, especially in today's age of the internet where access to information is not a limiting factor. A good school district that performs well is mostly a function of how much of the population is composed of that kind of student & parent combo and safe environment.

Beyond a bare minimum service level of functioning buildings, adequate nutrition, adequate medical care, adequate psychological testing, some basic school supplies and semi-competent, non-abusive teachers the finances do not matter.

If a classroom has a 1:10 ratio or 1:40 ratio or a 10 year old building vs a 90 year old building, big fancy gym vs an empty field, cool robotics lab or none at all, that barely matters in comparison and that what shows up as the difference in a well funded district vs a badly funded one.

A well funded good school district causes a shift in the student population, it's not the money that causes improvements in outcomes compared to population shift, so it is easy to mix the two.

Because the USA has a history of the above statement also being used for crypto-racist segregative bullshit, everyone thinks this really saying racist shit, but this applies the world over, including places without a long history of racism.

> A good school district that performs well is mostly a function of how much of the population is composed of that kind of student & parent combo and safe environment.

And that's tied to the school district, and is partially a function of how well funded the school is. People will money aren't going to send their children to poorly funded schools.

> Because the USA has a history of the above statement also being used for crypto-racist segregative bullshit, everyone thinks this really saying racist shit, but this applies the world over, including places without a long history of racism.

Outside of the US, funding for schools is often centrally planned, so most schools are relatively similar in funding, so you can't really properly compare.

Yes, this is tied to racism (white flight, segregationism/desegregationism), but this also applies to communities that are white and poor too.

Really, though, you're not very well educated on this subject. Your arguments don't reflect studies on the topic. You're making bold claims based on surface level thoughts; this is why people get angry when you say things like this.

People often don't live in the neighborhoods they work in, and people often can't afford to own in the neighborhoods they live in. A teacher who bought a house 20 years ago might still be able to live there, for example.

The quality of the schools depends more on the amount of parental support the students receive than the quality of the teachers.

I don’t understand the logic here. Schools are funded primarily through local property taxes. The town with the higher priced houses collects more property tax and can therefore allocate more funding to their school. This means they can pay higher salaries to teachers which means they can select for the best teachers. This attracts teachers that can’t afford to live in the town they teach in.