Even if you build more housing, having older people live in urban areas still increases the price of housing. Crucially, older people don't need to be near urban jobs, so it's much more socially practical for them to live in rural areas. At the end of the day, the question is which subsidy is harder to deal with? Cash payments to keep rural hospitals open seems a lot easier than wading into enormously expensive and distortionary urban housing policies like rent control.
San Fran is not the only urban area in the US. Of course elderly people can’t move to Manhattan or San Fran. But there is lots of affordable housing in Omaha, Cleveland, Houston, Milwaukee, etc etc etc. Additionally, there is no reason we can’t build more housing in mid sized metros of that nature. (I guess Houston is not “mid sized”, but you get the idea.)
No one is talking about the elderly moving to places that are too expensive. We’re putting forth the idea that maybe they should move away from areas that are too expensive.
I think you don’t understand how cheap rural areas are. My Oregon family blanches at the prices even in Eugene, forget Portland or Seattle. It’s not at all clear to me that whatever subsidies (rent control, etc.) would be required to allow the elderly to live in Omaha would be less than the subsidies for keeping rural hospitals open.
>I think you don’t understand how cheap rural areas are...
Just as a matter of full disclosure, I should let you know that I live in rural Wisconsin. I'm just trying to be as intellectually honest as possible about the subsidies that go into allowing me to be here.
There’s a bit of circular arguments going on here. Sure moving more people into an urbanized area may mean higher housing costs, but housing is not the only expense. Healthcare is a huge expense with over half of all healthcare expenses consumed by those 55 and older [1]
Additionally, there are several approaches that can be taken to lower housing costs other than price control. Housing policies are a huge mess throughout the country as its regulated locally, and exclusionary housing policies limit high density developments necessary to keep construction and infrastructure costs down.
