Homeownership used to be the on-ramp to the middle-class American Dream. For many young adults, that on-ramp now feels barricaded—by high prices, high mortgage rates, high rents, and student debt. In this episode, Michael Bailey and Dale McConkey trace how the starter-home drought ripples outward, negatively affecting:

• Wealth-building: Years of renting replace decades of equity, widening generational gaps.
• Life milestones: Delayed ownership nudges later marriages, fewer or later kids, and less geographic mobility.
• Community & civic life: Fewer roots can mean lower local engagement and turnout, thinner neighborhood ties, and more loneliness.
• Culture & politics: Rising cynicism (“the game is rigged”) meets nostalgia (“we’ve lost something essential”), fueling new coalitions and tensions.

Michael also proposed some possible solutions: zoning reform (more duplexes, ADUs, mid-rise), YIMBY approaches to mixed-income neighborhoods, right-sized incentives for first-time buyers, and pragmatic “yes-and” policies that different ideologies can actually share. Maybe, just maybe, we can find new pathways to the American Dream.

The views expressed on American Angst are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.