Re: housing, the Bay Area is an example of how it has to be resolved at the state level; the "city" of SF is small - they can't really resolve their housing crisis without San Mateo and San Jose resolving their housing crisis. The San Francisco/Manhattan scenario is somewhat unique nationally, but the solution to having local government captured by vested interests is a regional/state one. This is one of the frustrations about Kathy Hochul recently getting in the way of congestion pricing - it's a small but promising tool to properly price road use of dense urban areas and return the funds to public transportation, and it got vetoed, largely by commuters who like the status quo. Even if New York had a functional mayor right now, they're limited what they can actually do themselves. This goes double for a place like Oakland, which needs major redevelopment with infrastructure investment, and has no bargaining power absent regional/state subsidizing.
But Manhattan and SF are fairly unique. When you say "Democrat-run cities," my primary personal example is of course Chicago, a city where the predominantly conservative regional population that benefits mightily from having a world-class economic center and tourist destination within a short drive throws an absolute fit when it's asked to pay its fair share of the liabilities incurred in supporting a world-class economic center and tourist destination and in same cases moves across the state line to avoid doing so, which is a problem that would require, again, a state or federal level solution.
I'd also note that major housing crises only show up in areas where people really want to live. It's not an accident that the list is predominantly places like Seattle, SF, LA, Boston, NYC, DC, etc. The red state exceptions would be places like Austin, Nashville, or the research triangle, which all currently have Democrat mayors and have invested heavily in cultural or business environments appealing to young people. To some extent scolding "Democrat-run cities" for having housing shortages is castigating them for being interesting, desirable places to live with thriving economies, which should raise the question as to what's stopping "Republican-run cities" from being big deals.
In many cases those cities have housing shortages because they’ve traditionally been amazing economic and tourism centers that are great places to live and have a lot of jobs. They’re also geographically or topographically constrained which puts more pressure on housing. But there’s also a large element of a liberal base clearly voting against their supposed principles in order to protect their own interests at the expense of others lower on the economic ladder. What was it Ray said the other day about democrats caring about people and republicans caring about property?
In some cases those cities are experiencing exodus from the relative few who can afford to leave and still have astronomical pricing in spite of the fact that the cities are struggling with tent cities, massive influx of illegal immigrants, crime, abandonment of city centers, ever increasing prices of goods and services stacked with the highest taxes in the country, etc.
It’s a house of cards right now and it’s no accident most people leaving are fleeing to red areas. It’s not just because of cost of living, it’s a rejection of the policies that made them want to leave their homes in the first place.
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