> I have also lived in rent controlled areas where, even as a renter, these worries go away. ... . People can build for the long term, engage with their neighborhood organizations, form a stable community. You frequently see people staying in the same apartments for decades.
Why not work to a place where you could OWN and not RENT if long term is your goal. Build more housing, allow people to buy property to live in and watch them organically grow communities.
Not everyone has the capital to buy homes outright in areas that are e.g.: close to their place of work/well-funded public schools, or in which they feel safe.
Furthermore, buying houses can be a risky proposition, particularly since we're speaking about the context of fluctuating housing prices.
This is actually something that I wish was fixed. We can't do anything but treat it as a market priced entity - but I wish there was another way - a way to own but not own. Something between rent and own. Maybe if a non-profit organization could somehow start "owning" a bunch of homes and people buy into the organization. For each "owner" they are allocated a house. And then to move is to just find someone else that is moving within this large house owning organization. Kinda like a vast distributed network across the country that owns houses and people pay a standard rate to live in it. If you can't pay, you're out of the network until you can again.
Why not work to a place where you could OWN and not RENT if long term is your goal. Build more housing, allow people to buy property to live in and watch them organically grow communities.