There is a huge disparity between the affordability of housing between different cities in the United States. A teacher living in El Paso, Texas would be able to afford about 83 percent of the houses in the city, while a teacher living in San Francisco, California would be able to afford less than one percent of the houses in the city. On the other hand, a doctor in San Francisco would be able to afford nearly a third of the houses in the city. In general, the concern is that service workers and public servants will have to commute for an hour or more in order to get to work in these more expensive cities.

For younger generations - Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z - the largest obstacles to home ownership are student debt and the high cost of the down payment. When it comes to the tradeoff between buying a house in a nicer but less affordable neighborhood versus living in an affordable but less nice neighborhood, 51 percent of Americans would prefer the former option.

There is also a huge disparity between the availability of affordable housing units for extremely low income renters in the United States. Alabama contains 61 such units per 100 extremely low income renters, the most of any U.S. state, whereas Nevada only has 15 units per 100 extremely low income renters. According to a survey of U.S. mayors, the biggest obstacle to improving access to low income housing is the lack of federal or state funding for such programs. For residents of color, the biggest obstacle to improving access to housing is lack of bank financing for housing purposes.

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