alt Hacker NewsThis is a really well-thought out comment, and I agree with just about everything in it. One comment I'd like to call out for additional consideration is the comment on retirees being priced out due to rising property taxes.
In my experience, most retirees have more rooms/land than they can make productive use of. I feel that there should be some pressure for them to sell that property to families who can use it more productively. That's the stick, but I feel there needs to be a carrot, where builders are constructing homes that these retirees will be drawn to. There are retirement communities in the southern US like "The Villages" https://www.thevillages.com/, but as the population here ages, we need to build these everywhere so retirees can move into the communities that meet their needs without being forced to leave their cities.
But there's nuance here, too: families. My wife's side is a big Italian family. Everyone's here. What do you do if your grand kids are all here? How do you support your adult kids and help them achieve financial security? Or leave and secure your own? Neither is an easy choice.
There are here as well. The reason they work here, as far as I understand it, is that they count towards "affordable housing" units that are mandated by state law here in NJ. But I put that in quotes because these units in 55+ communities are often honestly still quite expensive, especially if you've already paid off your mortgage decades ago.