It's solvable if you're willing to accept that someone has to lose money. That's the core issue.

We've built a system where housing is simultaneously shelter and investment. As long as it's an investment, regular people will be priced out, because investment returns beat wages. You can tweak the margins - zoning reform, tax policy, NIMBY crackdowns - but the fundamental math doesn't change.

Real solutions require either: making housing a public good (takes political will we don't have), accepting that property investors take losses (literally unthinkable), or accepting that some people just don't get to live in the places where there are jobs and opportunities.

We're currently choosing option 3 and calling it inevitable. It's not. It's chosen.