I think this is way too doomerist.
Homeowners interests tend to win because homeowners vote a lot and make up a majority of the populace.
But as the success of the YIMBY movement has shown.
Even home owners can be pursuade out of regressively self interested policy preferences.
so I don't think the contradictiona are that grave.
From a position of comfort, I can agree and can recognize that things can change for the better, they can change for the better sooner than expected, and crucially change can come from unexpected sources.
In the housing crisis specifically, YIMBYism and its close relative urbanism will eventually win out even without major revolution or even major legislative reforms at the top. Non real estate capital and the state, are getting fed up with coalitions of incumbent homeowners ******ing economic growth (and therefore potential profits) and the local tax base, respectively. Moreover, as cheap gasoline becomes less and less likely to return to North America (and it will get cheaper), the NIMBY social safety valve of low wage workers commuting in from far away (where housing is cheaper), will become less and less viable and even many NIMBYs will soon become YIMBYs as there idyllic coastal and suburban towns, currently being declared “full” or “overpopulated” can suddenly find room for lots more housing and a great deal of low income housing at that. Suddenly, “shadows,” “neighborhood character,” and “traffic” suddenly won’t be a problem when the servers, warehouse workers, nursing home workers, nannies, maids, baristas, gardeners, and civil servants stop driving in from 100 miles out everyday to serve our affluent NIMBYs.
But if you are paying 50% of your income for half a bedroom in some crappy apartment, it’s hard to have that degree of patience, optimism, and political flexibility/pragmatism.
And on my obtuse point, it’s not a good look that this happens to people in States run by Democrats, in a city run by Democrats, and the landlord/slumlord is a Democrat, your boss is a Democrat, the owner of the company is a Democrat, and every powerful person in your life is a Democrat and they all have their hand in your pocket, it makes people far less receive to the very sound counter arguments that A.) the Democratic Party/coalition has a lot of internal variety, and B.) the Republicans really do sabotage and undermine efforts to improve the majority of worker’s material conditions.
And I don’t mean to single out the Democratic Party. In general, not living your values (or appearing to not do so) gives people an excuse not to engage with your arguments, even if those arguments are sound.