True, dat!It’s all too clear why parents will spend their last dollar (and their last borrowed dollar) on their kids’ education: In a society with dramatic income inequality and dramatic educational inequality, the cost of missing out on the best society has to offer (or, really, at the individual scale, the best any person can afford) is unfathomable. So parents spend at the brink of what they can afford. By contrast, non-parents are far more likely to actually build up savings. (In cases where parents do manage to find affordable housing in a district with good-quality schools, it can make all the difference.)
But investing in your kids as your retirement plan doesn't explain two things... 1) why do people continue to live in uber expensive coastal cities with utterly shitty schools; and 2) why does increased building density raise prices separate from better schools? Economies of scale are supposed to lower costs, not increase them.
When you combine these together, it's truly a head scratcher (for me).
Incidentally, as I've been looking at real estate investment possibilities, Ohio in the Rust Belt seems to be one of the best places for low-cost housing (specifically Columbus). Houses can cost $20K-$50K there. No joke. Now, maybe they're in a lower income, majority black area, but the point is prices like that are possible without being in the rural boonies miles from nowhere.