Not that long ago a single income could buy a house on a quarter acre block, support a family, three or four kids, buy a serviceable car and pay for an annual holiday. This being so, debt could be drawn down as new taxpayers were added to the workforce.

What's changed is the investment strategies of the better off and where the family home/bricks and mortar became preferred investments.

All assisted by asinine government policies, negative gearing and capital gains deferred or offset.

The end result is the demographic decline and thousands of noncompatible migrants imported. None of it good or approved of by the non-consulted taxpayer/voter!

We can't go back is the cry and not true. Transition to low-cost energy (MSR thorium) and anything becomes possible including millions of low rent, government owned homes.

Plus, most importantly, a resuscitated manufacturing sector and exports, and new taxpayers (big time) added to a turbocharged economy.
Alan B.

Some millennials can't afford houses because they are not prepared to make the sacrifices their ancestors did, when non-essential spending was curtailed in favour of paying off the mortgage, houses were smaller and simpler. That's what my parents did, and it's what my wife and I did - on one wage until the kids went to school. The whine 'things are different now' is cop-out bullsh.t.

It is clear from the urban sprawl that is still occurring that lots of sensible young people are buying houses, making sacrifices, and having kids. The real problem with housing is the media's megaphoning of whingers.

There are more diverse co-living examples not mentioned by this theorists imaginings; they are the homeless living in motel rooms all over the countryside, one meagre flimsy step above co-living in tents in a park,(or for the more fortunate, those living in the reasonable security of a Public School ground).

Swanky boarding houses as described here, are obviously geared for those with the means to house themselves with minimum inconvenience at any cost.

Not helpful. Dismiss this nonsense.

I enjoyed the previous two articles by this author, but I am disappointed by this one.

So the problem boils down to women who want so much to be pregnant that they are even happy to be barefoot. Our genes want what they want and scream that they are going to get it by hook or by crook, f*c* everyone and everything else, yet it is hard to find a husband who is also willing to go barefoot for the sake of babies - the pregnant wife barefoot in her tiled kitchen and the husband barefoot while working in the fields or on the asphalt in 40ºC.

What the author likes to find is a multi-generational community with the shared value of procreation. I wish her luck on her personal pursuit, yet procreation in our age is one of the most harmful activities on earth, that one activity which every government encourages so it can compete and fight with the others, that one activity which both today and historically was valued most by the greatest of tyrants.

Some young people like to co-live with like-minded people so they can spend their evenings playing Dungeons and Dragons together. While both activities take their toll on health, having babies is a much more expensive hobby!

Then comes an age when hormones change and one begins to wonder, "why did I want all these children?". When a person is no longer interested in Dungeons and Dragons, it is relatively easy to move house to some other co-living arrangement where they play bridge or read the Bible in the evenings, but when one is no longer interested, or no longer believes in procreation, it is so much harder to move out and find another place to live with all one's litter.

These days we need demographic decline like we need air to breath.

Co-living can be great, except when you go to the fridge to get your milk for breakfast, or a late night coffee, & find someone else wanted it more than you did. It can be a bit annoying when you find all the hot water gone, when you need a shower too. Tried it for a month or 2 in the 60s, so no thanks.

Yes Yuyutsu, the lady expects some bloke to give up his dreams of a nice car, a boat, or a trip to the reef, & go barefoot to pay for the babies she dreams of. Be careful there young man, if you are silly enough to fall for it, in the very near future you will be called out for not doing enough of the house work those babies she wanted generate.

Any bloke falling for this con job is on a hiding to nothing. He would find ladies in the red light district who are interested in giving him pleasure for his money, rather than just purloining his sperm, & he will still have enough left to buy some shoes.