Your points are true, and I’m in favor of building more housing, however the single family home has traditionally been a financial boon for lots of Americans, and having to pay for rent every month vs keeping some of that value in your mortgage is hard to discount.
I guess I’m just saying there should be cheap smaller houses and condos in cities too, not just rental places.
It's weird, people say the same things whether it's condos or apartments. Where I live, they will typically be derided as "luxury condos" despite being less than half the price of detached homes in the area.
(One of my more heretical opinions is that homes and land shouldn't be considered investments, and should perhaps not be a method of wealth building, as it turns every person into an investor whether they want to be or not. Which fuels regular people to take control of the local political processes that block new homes with talk of "luxury condos" and "stack and pack." If we are going to do something like this I'd favor a sovereign wealth REIT that redistributes the wealth more evenly and removed the financial incentive to be anti-competitive in land use decisions. That, or tax away all profits from speculation on land gains.)
I guess I’m just saying there should be cheap smaller houses and condos in cities too, not just rental places.