I'd gladly live near office if I could afford a decent house and schools for a family. Companies won't pay that to make it happen, so yes, I guess it's sorry/not sorry junior devs?

I don't think you do. This falls under "irreconcilable differences" and the solution is for people to work at companies that match their preferences.

Companies will just have to accept more of one of the other depending on their policies.

Alternatively they could become such an attractive place to work via other factors that they can attract employees whether remote or not

I'd be willing to bet a lot more would prefer to have only remote than only in person work, on both demographics. And even if not, seniors are just more important to retain anyway.

If companies want people to come into the office, they could pay them more and make it a condition of employment. In some sense they were getting a free ride for a long time by forcing senior employees to waste hours commuting for the benefits of in person mentorship. After all, upskilling junior engineers benefits the company much more than the senior engineer who is taking time away from doing stuff relevant to their own technical skills. Now the market has shifted: you want that, you pay more for it.

And make the conditions not suck! At the very very least this means an office with a door that closes? And ideally blinds on interior windows.

I’ve been remote for 8 years now and doubt I could ever go back, but above would be like a bare minimum to even consider - that and a minimum of a 25% comp bump over a remote option.