Inequality is destructive because it creates upwards pressure on real asset prices, with housing probably being the best example, which creates downward pressure on the real standard of living at the median.

Most of the developed world is going through one version or another of this right now. Housing cost crises everywhere from Vancouver to NYC to Tampa to London are far too sharp, far too recent, and far to correlated with the concentration of assets at the top of the wealth distribution to be “because we need to build more housing”. By all means build more housing, but if we keep redistributing all wealth upwards constantly that new housing will become expensive AirBnBs and shit, not homes owned by people at the median.

The idea that the person at the median is doing as well as they were ten years ago is a weird religion, the idea that they’re doing as well as their parents is a cult.

Inequality is bad because the basic essentials for the person at the median are some of the best investments for the people at the top.

> Housing cost crises everywhere from Vancouver to NYC to Tampa to London are far too sharp, far too recent, and far to correlated with the concentration of assets at the top of the wealth distribution to be “because we need to build more housing”.

This isn't recent at all. London workers literally have got paid more than non-London workers for at least the last 20 years due to housing costs. That, of course, only sends housing prices upward, but then many other factors do to.

London population's gone up by 1.7m people since the year 2010[0], and housing has gone up by 280000 dwellings in that same period[1].

To cope, rent and prices have gone way up, and large homes have been divided into several smaller ones, and there are HMOs as well, as the market reacts to that massive pressure.

> The idea that the person at the median is doing as well as they were ten years ago is a weird religion, the idea that they’re doing as well as their parents is a cult.

It's true for almost everything except housing, which can be explained by the above.

[0] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/22860/lond...

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/788390/number-of-dwellin...

> Housing cost crises everywhere from Vancouver to NYC to Tampa to London are far too sharp, far too recent, and far to correlated with the concentration of assets at the top of the wealth distribution to be “because we need to build more housing”.

And yet Austin actually *has* built more housing, and prices have come down.

Maybe in five or ten years it'll look more like you describe, but it sure doesn't yet.