The sad part, to further reinforce your rebuttal to the parent, is that the high costs weren't even enough to push me out for many years, I am fortunate to be a high enough earner that I was on the beneficial side of the unfortunate "good healthcare if you're rich" quote.

The dramatic decay, however, of third places, trust, institutional effectiveness, political discourse, capture, and polarization, social structures and community, just to name a few, has been striking. The trend was moving slowly in worrying ways well prior to covid, but after 2020 things took a step-function in directions that I'm not sure are easily recovered from; Ibn Al Khaldun has some things to say about transitions from trust-based to non-trust-based societies and the role education, or lack thereof, plays in that.

I think you summarize the current zeitgeist well in your core point: "economic factory farm with good PR" although as of late the PR has been somewhat lacking as well. While it's not the first time in America's history it's operated in a modality like this, I am definitely fearful that we got Very Lucky with the new deal era and marshal plan era boom, and there is no guarantee we will get lucky a second time. I also want to be clear so this is not misconstrued as catastrophizing: I'm not one to predict the collapse of any empire; they tend to rot instead. It's more just a question of in what sort of environment someone wants to live.

As such, our household set about acquiring dual residency a year or so back. It's certainly not a future I ever wanted, I continue to be extremely active in our local community and political spheres, but it seems imprudent to not have a plan at this point.